Spirits
by Alchemine
Summary: While trapped in the attic during a power cut, Miss Baxter learns that at Downton Abbey, dead isn't always gone. (Some Baxley)
1. Chapter 1

Tucked away at the far end of the Downton servants' corridor, there is a white-panelled door with a brass knob. From the outside it looks the same as all the others, but when opened it reveals not a servant's room, but a flight of stairs leading up to another door, and from there to the vast storage attic that takes up most of the space under the great house's sprawling roof. At the top of these stairs stands Phyllis Baxter, who has just pulled the cord to switch on the lights.

Downton has been fully wired for electricity since not long after the _Titanic_ sank, but in the lesser-used parts of the house, the elegant table lamps and glittering chandeliers give way to naked bulbs dangling from the ceiling. This is the situation in the storage attic, where the bulbs cast a harsh, unfiltered glare over the array of wooden packing cases and sheet-draped furniture below. From faded oil paintings, the eyes of Crawley ancestors who never saw an electric light in their lives watch disapprovingly as Phyllis picks her way through the maze of trash and treasure with a large pasteboard box clasped to her chest.

Earlier in the evening, Lady Grantham and Lady Mary had taken a fancy to look at old photographs from the Levinson side of the family, and so Phyllis, who is in charge of storing and retrieving all the countess' things, had been dispatched up the attic stairs to fetch the box of tintypes and daguerrotypes, some of them seventy years old or more. Mother and daughter had spent hours going through the photos, heads close together, leaving Phyllis free to make an uninterrupted start on her nighttime work. It had been pleasant for everyone.

This part, though—the part where she has to go back up to the storage attic alone, with the whole house asleep—is not pleasant at all.

Phyllis isn't particularly bothered by the dark stairs, but she is not at all fond of the attic's creaking floorboards and close, oppressive atmosphere, and she would much rather wait until morning and do this task then, when the sun is streaming through the east windows and she can hear other people moving about below. But that would mean keeping the box in her room overnight for safety's sake, and Phyllis would sooner go down to the station and throw herself in front of an oncoming train than be caught with any of Lady Grantham's possessions in her room, even for the most innocent reason. So she carries the box carefully and kneels in front of the old steamer trunk where it belongs—a heavy, iron-banded thing plastered with peeling labels for New York and Paris and London and Cairo—and she puts it back in its place and snaps the latches shut.

She is still there on her knees when all the lights go out, suddenly and completely, without a flicker of warning.

For a moment she's too startled to be frightened. It's what she imagines suddenly dropping dead would be like—one moment going about your business, and the next moment plunged into eternal blackness—and she even wonders for a moment if that's what has happened. Then her heart, which seems to have stopped temporarily from the shock, takes a wild leaping beat and starts to race, and she realises she's still alive, just in the dark.

Power cuts are no rare occurrence in the country, of course, and in the main part of the house, they're no more than an annoyance; the gas fixtures are all long gone, but there are plenty of candles scattered about, and Mr Carson, traditionalist that he is, still has a few oil lamps on the shelves in his pantry. But here in the attic, Phyllis has no way to make a light, and even if she could, it would be dangerous to have an open flame in such a packed, dusty space. She imagines being forced to stay here until the sun comes up, and the idea of spending the next six or seven hours here in the stifling attic makes her feel dizzy. Folding her arms on the closed lid of the steamer trunk, she leans forward and buries her face between them for a moment, eyes closed.

This calms her a bit, and she thinks that the best thing is just to sit still and not go crashing about, trying to find the door and probably falling down the stairs to her death. Either the lights will come back on in a few minutes, or they won't, and then she can think what to do next. Screaming for help is out of the question; not only are the rest of the staff asleep and no doubt unaware the electricity has gone, but she closed the door at the bottom of the stairs before coming up, as Mrs Hughes has admonished them all to do. She could scream her throat raw and no one would hear.

Trying not to linger too long on that thought, she turns herself around, sits on the floor with her back against the trunk, and tucks her skirt carefully under her legs, as if there is any possibility of someone seeing what ought not to be seen. It surprises her sometimes that the ingrained modesty she was taught in childhood has returned, after all the immodest things she did with Peter Coyle (and it was nearly always her doing them; she still isn't sure whether Coyle had been too selfish, too lazy, or too lacking in any real desire for her to return the favours he was given), but somehow it has. At least, Phyllis thinks with a touch of wry weariness, there can't be anything in this attic that is worse than he was.

She is feeling much more in command of herself now, despite the dark, and she thinks her eyes may even be adjusting a bit to that: there's a greyish quality to it, a vague lightening that seems to be coming from somewhere to her right. She remembers a great hulking wardrobe being there, when she could still see, and she wonders if perhaps the windows are behind it and the moon is beginning to rise. It would only take a very little moonlight for her to find her way back to the door, and from there to the safety of the servants' corridor, where there are all the candles and matches and people she could possibly want.

She hesitates, not quite sure she dares to leave her place, but then imagines the relief of seeing another human soul—Mrs Hughes or Mrs Patmore or perhaps Mr Molesley—and pushes herself onto her knees again, then stands up, hands out in front of her to prevent collisions. In this fashion, she edges forward, gropes where she thinks the wardrobe may be, and is rewarded by the feel of its hard wood under a protective draping of cloth.

There's definitely a faint light on the other side. She isn't imagining it.

Holding onto the edge of the wardrobe, she peers around it and comes face to face with a ghost.


	2. Chapter 2

Phyllis thinks that now she will scream after all, whether anyone can hear her or not, but her throat closes and all that comes out is a wheezy, barely audible gasp. The blood rushes out of her hands and feet and face, leaving her frozen and rigid, with every fine hair on her body pulled taut. Her head swims, and she's sure she's going to faint, but if she faints she will smash her skull open on one of the dozens of objects around her, and then she and the ghost will be here in the attic together forever. She clings to the wardrobe instead and with a superhuman effort, forces herself to stay upright.

The ghost seems unaware of her struggle, but she is quite certain that it does notice her. It doesn't have a face to speak of—more of a blur with the suggestion of features—but that blur has a distinct air of curiosity about it. Slowly, Phyllis unclenches her numb fingers and retreats around the side of the wardrobe, and the ghost drifts after her, not quite floating, but skimming along the floor somehow. As it does, it goes straight through an open crate heaped with china bearing the Crawley family crest, and this small detail makes Phyllis feel she is losing her grip on consciousness again. She reaches behind her, finds the familiar lid of the steamer trunk, and sits down on it.

The ghost comes right up to her, bare inches away, and its face-that-isn't-a-face rearranges itself into an expression that is almost concerned. There's a soft humming, crackling noise coming from it, rather like the sound of an electrical current. It smells of the air just before a storm.

It moves even closer, and Phyllis knows, she _knows_ it's about to touch her, and when it does she will go mad. She throws her hands up in front of her face, palms outward in a warding-off gesture, and the ghost seems startled.

"Don't touch me." There's a tremble in her voice, and she can feel tears about to spill over, but she doesn't stop. "Go away or I'll—I'll—"

She flounders, trying to think of something she could do that might harm a spirit, but the ghost doesn't wait to find out. It draws back, somehow giving the impression that she has disappointed rather than frightened it. Before she can speak again, it vanishes—not fading away, but simply blinking out of existence. As it does, the electricity comes back on, washing the attic in sudden light that feels blinding after the darkness, and Phyllis sees that the door to the stairs is not so very far away after all.

She jumps up and rushes for it, stumbling and catching her knee on the sharp unfinished edge of a crate as she goes, and grapples with the knob as if it's a living thing that is fighting against her grip. When she wins the battle and jerks the door open, a bulb just above her head goes out with a pop and a flash that makes her cry out, but she's through the door and down the stairs and it doesn't matter now.

The servants' corridor is quiet when she arrives in it, cool and peaceful with its fresh white paint and dim nighttime lighting. It's quite a contrast to Phyllis herself, who is out of breath, with tears on her cheeks and slick sweat running down her back, soaking through all the layers of her underclothes and dress. Her stocking is torn from its encounter with the crate and she can see a deep, bleeding graze through the hole.

She stands there at a loss, wondering whether to run and tell someone (but who? and what would she say?) or to go to bed and pretend nothing has happened, until finally she settles on a third option, which is to have a bath and try to make herself presentable before doing anything else.

It is unusual to be up and about at this time of night, but not against the rules as long as she stays on her side of the dividing door, so she lies in the bath for a long time, letting her injured knee soak and thinking about what she's seen. She is old enough to remember the spiritualism craze that began long before she was born and lasted for half a century, and she knows she is far from the only person who has ever claimed to see a ghost. At the same time, she also remembers being punished for telling ghost stories with the other children when she was young—little Tommy Barrow had been a great inventor of them, despite being one of the smallest—because, her mother said, they were heathen nonsense and she ought to know better.

If she has believed in ghosts at all since then, it has been a secret, guilty belief, not admitted to her waking thoughts. Surely if a spirit wanted to reveal itself, it would choose someone else—a medium, or one of the Crawley family, or someone very clever who would know what to do. Surely it wouldn't bother with Phyllis Baxter, lady's maid and former convict, who left school at age twelve...and yet, it has.

Phyllis may not be wealthy or highly educated, but she isn't soft in the head. She knows what she saw and she knows it was real. The question is, will anyone else? She thinks of telling Mr Molesley, but she wants very badly for Mr Molesley to think well of her, not to see her as ridiculous, a middle-aged woman behaving like a silly hysterical adolescent. She's certain that Daisy would believe her, or possibly Mrs Patmore, but they might start gossip among the staff that could end up spreading to the family upstairs. Mrs Hughes knows how to keep quiet about things, but is so brisk and no-nonsense that Phyllis cannot imagine her accepting a tale of ghosts in the attic. There is Thomas, but the fact that seven-year-old Thomas believed in such things in no way means that thirty-five-year-old Thomas does, and even though he has been behaving more kindly toward her lately, she sees no reason to give him anything new to hold over her head. At last she concludes, regretfully, that for now she will have to keep her own counsel and wait to see what happens.

 _And stay out of the attic at night_ , she thinks, and pulls the plug to empty her now ice-cold bath.


	3. Chapter 3

Work has always been Phyllis's preferred way of not thinking about things. As a child, she swept the yard and carried buckets of water to get out of the way of her father's temper, and as a grown woman, she spent three years in prison head-down over a pair of knitting needles, turning out endless mittens and socks to be distributed to soldiers and orphans. Work is what she longs for when the other parts of her life are too lonely or shameful or frightening to bear.

Now as Lady Grantham's maid, she has as much work as she cares to make for herself, and in the wake of the attic incident, she throws herself wholeheartedly into it. She does all the mending and brushing and turning of Lady Grantham's clothes for the upcoming winter season; she cleans the feathers on hats and polishes the buckles on shoes; and she accidentally annoys Mrs Patmore by taking over part of the kitchen to make a fresh stock of hand creams and hair tonics. If it can possibly be done, she does it, as long as it does not involve going back up those stairs and into the attic. She hasn't seen the ghost again, and the lights have stayed on, but when she walks down the corridor to her room at night, she thinks she can hear that low, thrumming electrical hum it made, just faint enough for her to pretend she's imagining it. It makes her uneasy, and she finds herself glancing over her shoulder more than is strictly necessary.

When she begins to run out of tasks to do, she hits upon the idea of replacing all the buttons on Lady Grantham's collection of opera gloves, and works the sum out carefully on the back of an old envelope: fifteen pairs of gloves with two gloves in each pair and twenty-two buttons on each glove, for a total of six hundred and sixty buttons altogether.

 _That ought to keep me busy for a bit_ , she thinks, rather grimly, and goes to ask for permission to buy the buttons in the village.

She doesn't expect Cora to argue about it, but Cora does; not because of the expense, but because, as the countess points out in her sweetest I'm-being-very-reasonable voice, there is really no need to replace _all_ those buttons. Why, she hasn't even worn half of her evening gloves yet this year, she says, and gives Phyllis a long, searching look before asking if she's certain she feels quite all right. Phyllis says yes, a bit baffled—does it show on your face somehow when you've been haunted, she wonders—and Cora says "Hmm" and then tells her that if she really insists, she can get the money from Mrs Hughes.

"And Baxter, perhaps you'd like to make an afternoon of it," she adds. "Lady Edith and I are going out, and I won't need you until it's time to dress for dinner. It might do you good to have some time away from the house."

"Thank you, milady," Phyllis says, and escapes to her own room, where she goes straight to the looking glass above her washstand and stares into it. This is not something she does often, as she sees more than enough of herself reflected over Lady Grantham's shoulder while tending to her needs, but it seems called for in this case. She thinks she looks all right—perhaps a bit pale, but otherwise it's the same face she's had all her life, though with a few more lines around the eyes and mouth than there used to be. She smooths her hair and pinches her cheeks to give them some colour, and then she puts on her coat and hat and collects the button money from Mrs Hughes, who, to her relief, appears to notice nothing out of the ordinary.

Outside the sky is thick with clouds, and there's a brisk, cold wind whipping at the trees and whirling dead leaves along the ground, but the fresh air has a bracing effect, and Phyllis begins to think that Lady Grantham was right about needing to get out. She starts down the lane feeling lighter inside than she has for days, and when she hears a familiar voice call out "Miss Baxter!" behind her, she turns to greet its owner with unalloyed pleasure.

"Good afternoon, Mr Molesley."

"Good afternoon." He's winded, clearly having hurried to catch her up. "Are you going into the village? I'll walk with you. I mean, that is, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind at all."

"It's only you've seemed a bit preoccupied, these last few days, and I wouldn't want to intrude."

"You're not." Phyllis looks down at her polished black shoes, suddenly embarrassed. The truth is that she has been deliberately avoiding him, wrapped up in her own worries and afraid of blurting out something she shouldn't, and only now does it occur to her that she may have hurt him without meaning to. She forgets sometimes that she isn't the only one who wishes to make a good impression; he cares about her opinion of him as well, though God alone knows why.

"Really?"

"Really," she assures him. "I'm glad of the company. I've been so busy this week I've barely spoken to anyone."

"Don't I know it," Mr Molesley says. "You've been a proper whirlwind of activity. Everyone's noticed."

"Have they?" Phyllis glances up at him, alarmed.

"Well, I have, anyway."

"That's all right then," she says, smiling. "Where are you off to in the village?"

"Just picking up a few things for Mr Carson." Mr Molesley, apparently having forgotten his gloves, blows on his hands, rubs them together and then stuffs them into his coat pockets. "And you?"

"I'm buying seven hundred buttons," Phyllis says. "I've never bought that many all at once. It's history in the making. You should come along and witness it."

Mr Molesley lets out the startled little bark of laughter he gives sometimes, as if he's surprised to find something funny in this dark and tragic world. "Maybe I will. And then...maybe we might have a cup of tea?"

"I would love to," she says.

It's over the tea that Phyllis plucks up her courage and decides to ask him about the subject preying on her mind. She doesn't think she can quite bring herself to tell him the dreadful tale, so knowing he loves a philosophical discussion, she comes at it from that angle instead.

"I was reading something in the newspaper," she begins, "and I thought I would ask your opinion."

"Oh?" Mr Molesley's face lights up, and he puts his teacup back into the saucer without drinking from it.

"It was an incredible story really," Phyllis says. She's watching him carefully, preparing to gauge his reaction, but his gaze is so intent that it unnerves her a little. He really does have lovely blue eyes, she thinks, apropos of nothing.

"What was it about?"

"It was about a woman who had seen a ghost," Phyllis says. "I don't mean one of those silly old-fashioned spiritualists. Just an ordinary woman who saw a ghost while she was at home, doing her daily work."

Molesley frowns. "Which newspaper was this in?"

"Oh, I don't remember," Phyllis says vaguely, "it was an old edition I think. Anyway, she had never seen a ghost before and really didn't believe in them, but once she had seen it she couldn't unsee it, if you see what I mean. And I was just wondering what you would do if something like that happened to you, being a man with an academic sort of mind and all." She picks up her cup and takes a deliberate sip of her tea, hoping her hand isn't shaking. "Or perhaps you don't believe in ghosts?"

"We-ell," Molesley says, considering the words as he speaks, "I've never seen a ghost, and I don't know anyone who's ever seen one either."

 _Oh, Mr Molesley, if you only knew_ , Phyllis longs to say, but holds the words back.

"But," he continues, "just because I've never seen one doesn't mean they can't be real, does it? 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,' and so forth. So until someone proves that ghosts don't exist, I suppose I have to at least entertain the possibility that they might."

Phyllis curves both her hands delicately round her cup and lets it warm them. "And if they did, and you saw one?"

"Well," he says again, "I suppose I would try to observe it, in a scientific way of course, to gather information and try to understand it better. Who knows? I could be the first man ever to have a verified conversation with a ghost. I'd be famous. Rich, too." He flashes her a crooked grin, as if to say that they both know the idea of a rich and famous Joseph Molesley is a ridiculous one.

"Anyway," he adds, reaching for a pink iced cake on the plate between them, "ghosts are meant to be ghosts because they have unfinished business in this world, you know. If I saw one I'd want to help the poor bu— er, I mean, help the poor thing out. Wouldn't you?"

Phyllis bites her lip and looks out the window of the tea shop. It's steamy with their combined warmth and breath, but she can see the street through it, and beyond that the church and the graveyard. A fine rain is beginning to fall on the graves, and she thinks of all the people inside them, all the hopes and dreams and stories cut off short in the middle of a sentence.

"I don't know," she says slowly. "I'll have to think about it."


	4. Chapter 4

She wants to think, and snipping and re-sewing those six hundred and sixty buttons gives her the opportunity to do it. For a week she sits and works on the project whenever she isn't actively waiting on Lady Grantham, whom she has caught several times giving her that appraising stare when she thinks Phyllis isn't looking. After the third or fourth time, it occurs to her that Lady Grantham may think she is preoccupied by something unseemly—perhaps even that she intends to start thieving again—so she makes an enormous effort to be cheerful and attentive when she goes upstairs, and to spend more time on the little things she knows her employer enjoys. A few extra minutes of brushing Cora's glossy dark hair and massaging cream into her hands is a small price to pay for peace, and no more than she owes to the woman who has given her a second chance she hardly deserves.

During a few of those sessions, she considers trying to steer the conversation around to the history of Downton, thinking it might give her a hint about the origins of the ghost in the attic, but she suspects that none of the Crawleys really knows very much about the splendid pile they live in. Certainly they seem to pay it little attention as they move from room to room. Mr Carson probably has the most information at his fingertips, but Phyllis is quite shy of the big, gruff, deep-voiced butler, despite having sat beside him at staff meals three times a day for more than two years, and never approaches him unless she has to.

So she keeps her mouth shut and sews, sews, sews, her fingers working away independent of her fevered brain, sewing on the three hundredth button and then the four hundredth without having reached a conclusion. Mr Molesley sits near her when he isn't needed upstairs, reading or polishing silver, and his presence comforts her even though they rarely speak about more than the weather.

After a while, she begins to think perhaps she doesn't need to do anything after all: the ghost will stay in the attic, where it may already have been for centuries for all she knows; she will ask a maid or a footman to go with her when she needs to fetch something, and sooner or later the door at the end of the corridor will look like a door again and not the portal to Hell. But then, somewhere around the five hundred and fiftieth button, events take a turn on their own.

It happens as she's going upstairs, very late because Lord and Lady Grantham have had dinner guests who outstayed their welcome—at least according to Thomas, who reported on a trip downstairs that Lord Grantham looked ready to throw them out a window to get rid of them. Lady Grantham has cut her nightly routine short and is already asleep in the massive four-poster she shares with her husband (an arrangement that makes Phyllis feel a bit wistful for something she will never experience), and Phyllis has decided to leave the rest of the buttons for another day and go to bed herself. She says goodnight to the housemaid who has gone up just ahead of her, and then, as she starts to open her own bedroom door, the lights in the corridor blink off and on.

For a moment she can't breathe, her chest is so tight with panic, and she stands rigid with her hand on the doorknob and waits to see what comes next. The servants' corridor has plain incandescent bulbs like the ones in the attic, but they're covered with frosted glass shades that soften the light and have always reminded Phyllis of the moon. Slowly, fearfully, she turns her head to look at the nearest one, and realises she is counting to herself, one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four-one thousand, as if she expects a thunderclap to follow the flash. Instead, she hears the beginning of the ghost's electrical hum, so low that she thinks she may be feeling it in bone and sinew rather than hearing it with her ears.

The lights blink again, on and off so quickly that anyone else might have assumed they had imagined it, and Phyllis thinks of hammering on the housemaid's door, or of running down all the winding flights of stairs to the dining room, where she last saw Mr Molesley cleaning the candlesticks, and begging him to help. _I am the woman who saw the ghost_ , she will say, _it was me, Mr Molesley_ , and he will believe her and tell Mr Carson, who will tell Lord Grantham, who will—what? Have them both sent to a madhouse, probably.

She turns and looks at the door to the attic, shut tight as always, hiding whatever secrets live inside it behind bland, anonymous panelling. Suppose, she thinks, suppose she goes up the stairs, only just to the top, with the lower door left ajar to be sure she can find her way out again if the lights go out completely. If the ghost is there, then she can slip away and fetch someone else to see it too, and if not, then no one will have to know.

It isn't a plan Phyllis ever would have considered a fortnight ago, but desperation makes her either braver or more reckless. She lets go the doorknob, which she has been gripping fiercely enough to leave an angry red indentation in her palm, and takes a step along the corridor, then another, putting each foot down softly to stop the heels of her shoes making noise.

She wonders if the door will be locked—it has a keyhole, but is generally left unlocked for the staff to fetch and put away items when needed—but it opens at her touch as if it has been waiting for her. Slipping inside, she pulls it halfway closed in deference to Mrs Hughes' rule, but leaves enough of a gap for a triangular wedge of light from the corridor to fall across the floor and inner wall.

There are fifteen steps from bottom to top. She's on the thirteenth one when the door slams shut behind her.


	5. Chapter 5

The bang of the door sounds as loud as a shotgun blast in the confined space, and Phyllis reacts without thinking, turning and running as if the hounds are at her heels. Near the bottom of the stairs, she stumbles and half slides down the last two or three steps, turning her ankle in the process, but she's filled with too much terrified energy to feel any pain. She wrests at the knob on the inside of the door and is not at all surprised to discover that it refuses to move.

"Let me out!" She bangs on the door with her palms and then with her clenched fists. "Is anyone there? Please, someone help!"

No response comes, and eventually she stops, with her hands stinging and her wrenched ankle beginning to throb dully, and leans her forehead against one of the panels. Her throat hurts from shouting. How can no one have heard her? If she were high above in the attic with both doors closed, it would be different, but here there is only a single door separating her from the servants' corridor, and while all the doors in the house are old and sturdy, they don't stop sound completely. Even in her own room, she can sometimes hear footsteps or a muffled cry from a sleeper suffering a nightmare. If nothing else, the slam should have woken Daisy, who is nearest, and brought her out to investigate. It's all terribly wrong, and there is nothing, nothing she can do about it.

Phyllis rattles the knob one last time in frustration and then turns to look up at the narrow landing at the top of the stairs, barely visible in the faint light coming through the crack under the door nearest her. In her urgency to get out, she has almost forgot why she came in the first place, but now she remembers. Somewhere up there is the pull cord that switches on the bulbs in the attic. Somewhere up there is also the ghost. Does she dare go up and open that door, knowing there can be no escape in this direction? Does she have a choice?

No, she decides. She doesn't. She has come this far, and the only thing to do is to see it through. And she senses that the door wants to be opened; that she is being drawn, very gently, up the stairs toward it. Her ankle hurts, but not enough to stop her climbing, though she needs the support of the handrail, worn glassy-smooth by years and years of other people's hands sliding along it. She has just enough time to wonder if any of them saw the ghost as well, and then she is at the top and reaching out toward the knob. A tiny blue spark snaps against her fingers as she grips it and turns.

She means to switch on the lights as soon as the door is open, but before she can find the cord, she sees that the ghost is already there, drifting aimlessly in the same part of the attic where she encountered it the last time. It seems more clearly defined, but there is still no indication of age or sex or anything else that might link it to a once-living human. Softly, quietly, Phyllis slides through the door and flattens herself against the wall, still fumbling for the cord, and then the ghost turns and sees her too. It brightens until it glows white-hot, like a bolt of lightning searing across the sky, and she gasps and automatically squeezes her eyes shut against it.

When she opens them again, the ghost is only an arm's length away, peering at her. Its sharp ozone smell is everywhere, in her nose and mouth and throat and lungs. She wants to cough it out, but she can't draw a deep enough breath, and now the ghost is drifting forward, encroaching on her more aggressively than before, and she feels an intense tingle, just on the edge of being painful, as the ragged edge of its substance touches her skin. All at once, she understands what it means to do and tries to shrink away, but the solid, unyielding wall is at her back and she is trapped.

"Please don't, please don't, oh God!"

She turns her head frantically from side to side, trying at least to keep it away from her face, but it's as relentless as the tide coming in, or the pale fog that rolls in over the meadows on spring mornings. It overlaps her, settles and sinks in, filling every cell of her body to bursting, spilling over at her edges, and she thinks that this is more than she can bear and she will die of it. It isn't a carnal act—at least she can sense no such motivation behind it—but it is the most intimate and invasive thing she has ever experienced in her life. Her most reckless, wanton dalliance with Peter Coyle feels like an accidental collision with a stranger on the pavement in comparison.

She tries again to get away from it, and finds that she is fixed in place, held rigid by an irresistible force. Her arms are pinned against the wall, fingers splayed, and from the corners of her eyes she can see the white glow of the ghost's aura all around them.

"You're hurting me," she whispers. Tears roll down her cheeks. The paths they trace buzz and crackle like live wires, and she wonders if they are glowing too. "It's too much. I can't."

 _Try_ , the ghost says. Its words seem to form somewhere in the middle of her brain and spread outward from there, never quite reaching her ears. _For this is the only way we can truly speak to each other._

"I am trying."

 _Try harder._

Phyllis can only moan in response. Her head is splitting, the marrow of her bones on fire, her heart fluttering erratically in her chest.

 _I will try too,_ the ghost says. _I will make myself smaller. We will try together._

Phyllis feels it gathering itself together, drawing inward and becoming more dense, and that overflowing sensation eases just enough to become bearable. She draws a long, trembling breath, and the ghost says, _Is it better?_

"A little," Phyllis says. Her own voice sounds foreign to her, like the voices on the wireless, or someone speaking through layers of thick velvet.

 _Good,_ says the ghost. It shifts within her, adjusting, making her gasp.

"You burn," she says when her breath comes back. "What are you made of?"

 _I am made of the same stuff as living things are, only without a physical form to contain it,_ the ghost says. _This light is inside you too. It is the fire that drives you. One day it shall be set free, but not today. You will not die from sharing your mind and body with me, at least not for this short time._

"It feels like dying," Phyllis says, and a set of fresh tears streaks down her face, following the tracks of the ones that went before.

 _When you truly die, you will understand the difference,_ the ghost says. _Now let us talk. Please. It has been so long since I have talked with anyone._

Phyllis casts about for something to say, but can think of nothing. In the light of the ghost's glow that is now hers as well, she can see the dark outlines of all the heavy old furniture in the attic, all the centuries of family history stored away, and that brings a question to mind.

"Are you one of the Crawleys?"

 _Who are the Crawleys?_

"The family who live in this house," Phyllis says, and then cries out as the ghost enlarges itself again, seemingly in startled recognition. "Don't! That hurts!"

 _I am,_ says the ghost, _but I cannot tell you my own name, for I have forgotten it. I think I have lost it here somewhere, among all these other forgotten things. I was looking for it when I saw you._

"For your name?"

 _Yes. I know it is here. Everything that is old and lost in this house is here. Will you help me find it?_

"I—I wouldn't know how to," Phyllis says. The mingled fear and pain and confusion are making her feel slow and stupid, and she wishes she could put her hands to her head and squeeze coherent thoughts out of it. "I'm not the person to ask. This concerns the family, I should tell one of them—"

 _No,_ says the ghost. _They do not believe in such things. They will not listen to you, or if they do, they will send men to tear this place apart, and I do not want to be disturbed in that way. It must be done quietly, by someone who knows how to keep a secret. You are such a person, are you not?_

"Yes," Phyllis says faintly.

 _I know,_ says the ghost. _You are full of secrets. Promise you will keep mine too._

"I promise."

 _And you will help to find my name?_

"Yes," she says again. "I'll help you somehow, only please, please stop now. Please, I truly can't bear any more."

 _Very well,_ says the ghost, _but remember you promised._

For an instant it feels as if it will expand until her whole body is destroyed from the inside, but then she sees that it's leaving her, streaming away without bothering to reshape itself into even the most rudimentary human form. She feels light and empty and hollowed out, and she wants to revel in the sheer relief of it, but her legs are shaking and won't hold her up. She's on her knees, and then the creaky, splintery old attic floorboards are pressed against her cheek because she's either lain down or fallen over.

 _I can't stay here,_ she thinks, but everything is floating away from her, and she's in the dark again.


	6. Chapter 6

The next things she is aware of are hurrying footsteps and anxious female voices around her, followed by gentle fingers smoothing her hair back from her face and feeling for the pulse in her neck, and then Mrs Hughes' unmistakable Scots accent cuts through it all.

"Miss Baxter, can you hear me?"

"Yes," Phyllis rasps. Her throat feels torn to shreds, and she thinks she might commit a murder for a drink of water.

"Can you sit up?"

Phyllis nods, not wanting to speak again unless she has to, and two pairs of hands take hold of her from either side and help her into an upright position. Opening her eyes, she is startled to find herself in the servants' corridor rather than the attic. The long row of lights in their white glass shades blurs in front of her, and she feels a surge of terror that they may go out, but it's only her vision playing tricks.

"How did I come to be here?" she asks, deciding that this is a question worth the pain.

"You'll have to tell us that," Mrs Hughes says. The housekeeper is kneeling face to face with her, still in her crisp black day dress, but without her apron. "Daisy got up to go to the lavatory and found you on the floor right here, in front of the door to the stairwell."

"I didn't half scream, either," Daisy's voice says near her, and Phyllis realises that Daisy is the person on her left. She turns her head and discovers Mrs Patmore on her right. The housemaid, Julia, hovers a little way off, wrapped in a pink dressing gown, looking pale and scared.

"I—" Phyllis glances round at all the questioning faces and feels overwhelmed, and with it, as if she may faint again. It's a measure of how this night is going that fainting sounds like a desirable option. "I think I need to lie down properly. May I go to my room?"

"Yes, of course," Mrs Hughes says. "Mrs Patmore and I will help you. Daisy, Julia, you girls get along to bed. Miss Baxter will be quite all right."

Daisy and Julia both look as if they would rather stay and see for themselves, but they know better than to argue with the housekeeper, and with only a few backward glances, they both retreat into their rooms and close the doors. When they've gone, Mrs Hughes and Mrs Patmore, both strong and sturdy from years of hard work, hoist Phyllis up from the floor as if she weighs nothing, and supporting her between them, convey her to her bedroom. Mrs Hughes sits her firmly in the single chair while Mrs Patmore turns down the covers on the bed, and then says to the cook, "Perhaps a hot drink for Miss Baxter, Mrs Patmore, and I think a little something extra in it wouldn't go amiss."

"Right you are," Mrs Patmore says, and bustles out of the room. As soon as she has gone, Mrs Hughes whisks Phyllis's clean white nightdress out from under the pillow and holds it out to her, then turns her back and appears to be studying the pitch-black view through the skylight. Phyllis takes this as a sign that she is meant to be undressing for bed and gets on with it, undoing buttons and stockings in a race to finish before Mrs Patmore comes back.

"I do need to know what happened, Miss Baxter," Mrs Hughes says to the empty air. "We have had...incidents in the house before. If someone harmed you—"

"No, nothing like that," Phyllis says, although it occurs to her that what happened in the attic, at its core, was not too far removed from the sort of harm Mrs Hughes means. "I was going up to bed and I thought I heard something in the attic stairwell. I went to see if an animal had got in through the roof, like last winter, and...I suppose I must have slipped and fallen when I was coming back down." It is marvellous in a horrible way, she thinks, how this story is true and false at the same time. The deception makes her uncomfortable, but so does not knowing how she got from the attic to the bottom of the stairs, or opened the door that had been so impossibly stuck when she was struggling with it.

"And was there an animal?"

"There was nothing alive at all," Phyllis says, this time completely truthfully. She pulls her nightdress over her head, threads her arms through its sleeves, and twitches it down to cover everything that needs covering. "I'm decent now, thank you."

"Into bed with you, then," Mrs Hughes says, turning around. "Can you walk there?"

Phyllis finds that she can, albeit a bit unsteadily and while favouring her sore ankle. Mrs Hughes plumps the pillow behind her back and draws the quilt up to her waist, with a brisk efficiency that is kind without being sentimental, and then takes Phyllis's place in the chair, absentmindedly scooping up the discarded clothes and folding them into a neat pile on her lap.

"Well, I'm glad you're not badly hurt, Miss Baxter, but for goodness' sake send one of the footmen to investigate next time you hear a noise," she says. "They could all do more to earn their keep."

"I will," Phyllis says. She is beginning to feel a little sick, either from the fainting spell or what preceded it, and she wishes that the housekeeper would say goodnight and leave. She needs to be alone, to think about her promise to the ghost and how she can keep it.

Mrs Hughes seems to read her mind and stands up with a rustle of skirts and a jingle of the keys at her belt.

"Speaking of footmen, Mr Molesley heard what happened, heaven knows how, and is absolutely frantic to see you. I've told him you're perfectly all right, but he seems to feel my word isn't enough, ridiculous man." Her voice is a perfect blend of irritation and tolerant amusement. "Anyway, if you're not too tired, I'll allow him in for five minutes. I don't suppose anything too inappropriate can happen in that amount of time."

"That would be nice," Phyllis says. The thought of seeing Mr Molesley cheers her a bit, as does knowing he has been worried about her. She would prefer not to be in her nightclothes for their meeting, but she supposes beggars can't be choosers.

"I'll just go and find him, then," Mrs Hughes says. "I doubt he's far away. He was haunting the men's side of the corridor last I saw."

Her inadvertent choice of words makes Phyllis feel even more nauseated for a moment, but she closes her eyes and fights it down as Mrs Hughes slips out, pulling the door shut behind her. In what seems like no time, she reappears with Mr Molesley's tall shape looming over her shoulder, bearing a steaming cup and saucer on a small tray.

"We met Mrs Patmore coming up," Mrs Hughes says by way of explanation. "Drink it all, it'll do you good. You can bring the cup down in the morning if you're well enough, or have Daisy do it for you. Now, Mr Molesley—" She turns to him. "Five minutes and not an instant longer, and I'll be just outside, so don't get any ideas."

Molesley looks affronted by this admonition, but he says "Yes, Mrs Hughes," and waits until the door closes again before asking, anxiously, "Are you really all right, Miss Baxter?"

"Only a twisted ankle and a bump on the head," Phyllis reassures him, and his thin, nervous face relaxes into a smile.

"Thank goodness. What happened?"

"Nothing," Phyllis says. "Just me being clumsy and silly. Is that tea?"

"I don't think it's only tea," Mr Molesley says. He steps forward and presents the tray and cup with the same practised flourish he would use to serve Lady Mary or Lady Edith at their afternoon teatime in the library, and Phyllis takes it, smiling to herself at being treated so deferentially. The first sip feels like a scuttle full of hot coals going down her damaged throat, and she splutters, realising that Mrs Hughes' "little something extra" is a full shot of whisky.

"Miss Baxter?" Mr Molesley looks worried again.

"It's a bit strong," Phyllis chokes out. She tries another sip, and this time the burning melts into a soothing warmth that spreads to her icy hands and feet. "But not bad. Thank you, Mr Molesley. And thank you for being so concerned about me."

"Well, of course," Molesley says, and even in the dim light of her bedside lamp, she can see him blushing. "How could I not be?"

He looks away, embarrassed by his own boldness, and then seems to notice for the first time that he is alone with her in her bedroom, at night. His eyes travel helplessly from her unpinned hair to the fine embroidery on the bodice of her nightdress to the line of her outstretched legs under the quilt, and then dart back to her face as if to make sure he hasn't transgressed. Phyllis smiles up at him softly and drinks a little more of her tea, which is starting to make her feel more than a bit swimmy in the head.

There's a knock on the door, and Mrs Hughes' muffled voice says "Time's nearly up, Mr Molesley. Say your goodnights and get back to your own place."

"Er," Molesley says. "I have to go."

"I know," Phyllis says. "I'm glad you came."

"Will you be down for breakfast, do you think?"

"If I can. If not, I'm sure it will be soon. I'm tougher than I look, you know."

"Well...goodnight, Miss Baxter."

"Goodnight, Mr Molesley."

He leaves, and Mrs Hughes pops her head into the room one last time, apparently to check that they haven't managed to commit any indecency in that short interval, then says goodnight as well and departs for her own bed, leaving Phyllis on her own at last. She thinks she won't sleep—indeed, that she may never sleep again—but with the lamp left burning for comfort and the whisky working its spell on her weary mind, somehow she manages it after all.


	7. Chapter 7

Phyllis falls asleep with the fond hope that in the morning she may be fully recovered, but when she wakes up in the grey pre-dawn light, she knows even before trying to get out of bed that she won't be performing her usual duties. Her ankle feels hot and puffy and tight, and when she pulls back the bedcovers for a look, it's twice its normal size and at least four different shades of black and blue. She wonders how she is even going to hobble far enough down the corridor to let anyone know, but Mrs Hughes, whose job it is to anticipate such things, stops in to tell her that she has already arranged for Anna to wait on Lady Grantham today.

"As for you, Miss Baxter, you had better stay in bed," she says, regarding Phyllis's ankle with a mixture of sympathy and distaste. "And I'm not sure we shouldn't have Dr Clarkson come out to see to that. It looks dreadful."

"Oh no, I'll be all right," Phyllis says hastily. She doesn't want to tell Mrs Hughes that she has had more than enough of being poked and prodded by doctors in prison, where all the inmates had had to endure a humiliating monthly examination for signs of pregnancy and venereal disease. "I can wrap it myself, if someone can bring me the bandages to do it."

"Well, if you insist, I'll send Daisy up," Mrs Hughes says. "She can bring you your breakfast as well. I don't suppose you'll be able to manage the stairs for a few days at least. Do try to get dressed if you can, though. It'll make you feel better."

"I will," says Phyllis, who is thinking, with a sort of guilty relief, that if she can't manage the stairs, then no one can expect her to go back up to the attic and face the ghost again just yet.

She decides that she will use this reprieve to consider how best to approach the problem, and she does exactly that while she dresses in obedience to Mrs Hughes' command, standing beside the bed and balancing awkwardly on her good leg. How is she to find out who the ghost might be? She was a competent enough pupil at school, but there was no suggestion that she should stay on once she was old enough to go out to work, and she has never really felt it as a loss: she likes to read when she has the time, but her tastes tend toward popular novels, not the dense, heavy stuff that Mr Molesley is always stuck into, and she has certainly never done any sort of formal research. She can't imagine herself combing through musty old records in a library, looking for the name of someone who might have died a hundred years ago or more.

Still mulling it over, she smooths out her quilt—making the bed properly is out of the question at the moment—and lies down on top of it, wishing she had a spare pillow to prop up her foot. Suppose the ghost had meant what it said literally, she wonders, and its lost name really is in the attic, inscribed on a scroll or written in an old Crawley family Bible. Finding such a thing might be easier, but the idea of spending hours upon hours digging through boxes and trunks, with the ghost ready to swoop on her if it thinks she isn't working quickly enough, is a horrifying one. Her mind fills with a sudden, unwanted memory of being penetrated and invaded and filled by its substance, and the burning pain that held her transfixed, and her hands start to tremble in response.

Just then, there's a tap at the door, and she calls "Come in," relieved at the prospect of human company. Her visitor turns out to be Daisy, carrying a jug of water and a drinking glass, and just behind her, Mr Molesley, with one of the varnished four-legged trays they use for the Crawley ladies' breakfasts.

"Oh good heavens," Phyllis says, embarrassed, "I wasn't expecting it to come like this. I don't need a fuss."

"Mrs Hughes said to," Daisy informs her a bit tetchily. She deposits her burden on the bedside table and bends down to pour Phyllis a glass of water. "And Mrs Patmore said that Mr Molesley should help me. I'm sure I don't know why. I can carry a tray all right."

Phyllis looks over Daisy's shoulder and meets Molesley's gaze. As usual, he's blushing, but gives her a little shrug and a sheepish smile, and she has to stifle a giggle. Considering that last night she felt as if she would never laugh again in her life, this feels like an improvement.

"Perhaps Mrs Patmore doesn't want you to wear yourself out for me," she suggests. "You are very important in the kitchen, after all."

This appears to mollify Daisy somewhat, and she stands aside and lets Mr Molesley place the tray over Phyllis's lap. It's the ordinary food the staff have every morning, toast and tea and porridge and egg, but someone who knows how to put together a breakfast tray—Anna, probably—has arranged everything nicely and added a flower in a blue bud vase.

Molesley steps back to join Daisy, and Phyllis is briefly afraid that the two of them are going to stand there and watch her eat like a pair of proud parents, but Daisy has other ideas.

"Well, we'll leave you to it, Miss Baxter," she announces. "I'll come for the tray later. Oh, and—" She reaches into her apron pocket, pulls out a roll of gauze bandage and sets it on the table next to the water glass. "I can help you with it if you like. I did loads of bandages during the war, when we had the soldiers here. All of us did."

"Oh, that's very kind," Phyllis says. She finds the notion of being bandaged by Daisy rather unnerving, though she can't explain why. "I think I'll try it myself first, but then can you look it over and see if I've done it right?"

Daisy grins, suddenly all dimples. "Course I can. I'll be back after we finish clearing up from upstairs breakfast. Come on, Mr Molesley. You know Mrs Hughes said you weren't to hang about on the women's side."

She heads for the door with a hint of Mrs Patmore's busy bustle—whether it's a conscious imitation or just the effect of the years they've spent working side by side, Phyllis can't say—but Mr Molesley lingers just for a moment.

"How are you feeling this morning, really?"

"Well, my head is better, but my ankle's worse, so more or less the same on balance," Phyllis says, smiling. "I'll give you a progress report next time I see you, whenever that may be. I don't think even Mrs Hughes can convince Mr Carson to let you deliver every meal to me in person."

"We'll see," Mr Molesley says mysteriously. "Can I bring you anything else? A book to read?"

Phyllis wonders what he would say if she asked him to fetch her the county birth and death registries for the last two centuries or so. She is touched to think that he would probably try to do it.

"Perhaps the newspaper, later," she says. "And...if you could do one other thing for me?"

"Anything."

"When you go out, could you check that the door to the attic is closed? I don't like to think I might have left it open last night."

Mr Molesley looks mildly baffled by this request, but he nods. "Of course."

"Thank you," Phyllis says, and picks up the spoon to knock the top off her egg. "Mrs Hughes really ought to keep it locked. You never know what might be up there."


	8. Chapter 8

Mr Molesley sends word by Daisy that he has checked the attic door, but Phyllis finds that it preys on her mind anyway. She spends three days trapped in her room with little else to think about, except when someone will be along to bring her a meal or help her hobble to the lavatory. Anna brings up her workbox, a heap of mending, and the remainder of the glove buttons, so at least her hands are busy, but the hours still feel very long as the sky lightens and darkens and lightens again in the window high above her head. Clouds pass over and rain spatters the glass, and she thinks fondly of her rainy-day meeting with Mr Molesley, who has not been able to visit in person again despite his good intentions.

She asks Anna about him on the morning of the second day, hoping it sounds like a casual enquiry, and Anna giggles and tells her that Mr Carson turned to Mr Molesley at breakfast and said that of course they all hope Miss Baxter recovers quickly, but Molesley has more important things to do than running up to the servants' quarters every other hour to bring her a cup of tea. Anna does a fair impression of Mr Carson's gruff voice and scowling eyebrows as she says this, and Phyllis can't help laughing too, even though she misses Mr Molesley rather a lot.

Later that afternoon, Mrs Isobel Crawley visits the family for lunch, and upon learning that Cora's maid is out of commission with a sprained ankle, insists on being taken up to see her. This is embarrassing, but like the rest of the staff, Phyllis knows Mrs Crawley doesn't truly understand the way things are meant to be done, so she receives her with as much dignity as she can and patiently answers questions about what happened and how she feels. As Mrs Crawley leans in to examine the rainbow of bruising that now extends partway up Phyllis's shin, Phyllis looks at the older woman's smoothly coiffed, genteelly greying head and wonders what Mrs Crawley would have to say to the real story of how she was injured. Probably something along the lines of 'stuff and nonsense,' she thinks, and keeps quiet.

Mrs Crawley does leave her with a piece of useful advice, which is that exercising the damaged ankle will help it to heal faster. That gives Phyllis something else to do: now in addition to sewing, watching the sky and thinking about the ghost, she can sit in her chair and trace the alphabet on the floor with her foot, which Isobel said was the best way to work the joint in all directions. By the end of the third day, she thinks she must have traced all the letters enough times to spell out the complete works of Shakespeare, but her ankle does feel better and the swelling has gone down. With tight strapping and a few aspirins, she expects she can go back at least to dressing Lady Grantham and doing her hair, even if someone else has to do the fetching and carrying for a little longer.

Deciding to test out out her recovery, she slips out of her room and goes for a solo walk in the corridor, and finds that she can go all the way along it twice before her ankle starts to throb, and she has to stop and rest, leaning against the wall. There's no one coming in either direction—at this hour, the staff will either be serving dinner to the family or preparing the library for them to retire to afterward—and Phyllis wishes she could sit down on the floor, just for a minute, but that sort of inelegant sprawling about is not something either Mr Carson or Mrs Hughes would approve of, if they were to catch her at it.

Instead, she reaches down to feel gingerly of her injury and make sure she hasn't done any additional damage. Years ago, long before Peter Coyle or prison or ghosts entered her life, she was taught to perform a graceful dip at the knees to do such tasks, rather than bending over crudely from the waist, and it is this position she is in when she catches sight of the attic door from the corner of her eye.

Ever since the night the ghost spoke to her, she has refused to look at the door—when Anna or Daisy or Julia helps her to the bathroom to wash, she keeps her head turned resolutely forward to avoid it—but now she is looking and she can clearly see that the door is standing ajar. The sight of the narrow black gap strikes an instant chill through her entire body, as if it's an open grave. She straightens up at once, ignoring the sharp twinge of pain it creates, and edges toward the safety of her own room with her back pressed against the corridor wall. The lights burn steadily on, and she can't feel the ghost's warning tingle on her skin, but somehow she knows it is there all the same.

She has left her own door open, and when she reaches it, she backs in as fast as she can, pulling it shut as she goes. The room is just as she left it, tidy and softly lit, with the covered dish that had held her dinner still sitting on the bedside table, but now it feels as if the shadows in the corners are reaching out for her. She sits down on the edge of the bed and covers her face with her hands, trying to slow her breathing. Mr Molesley would not have lied to her about the door, of that she is certain. Has one of the maids or footmen opened it since then and forgot to close it again? Or has it been opened by something else?

Someone taps softly at the door to her room, and she nearly screams, but collects herself and calls for the visitor to come in. The door opens, and Anna puts her fair head round the corner. She's smiling, but the smile fades as soon as she sees Phyllis's face.

"Good heavens, Miss Baxter, what's the matter? You look—" She falters, clearly torn between honesty and politeness. "A bit upset."

"I'm fine," Phyllis tucks her hands under her legs to keep them steady and hopes Anna won't notice. "I—I went for a walk, out in the corridor, and I think I may have overdone it."

Anna clicks her tongue, gently disapproving. "You should be more careful. You won't heal if you push yourself too hard."

"I know. I'm just anxious to get back to work, that's all." She tries on a smile, and Anna seems to accept it.

"Of course you are. I would be too. And I know her ladyship is missing you—not that she said so, she'd never want to make me feel bad, but I can tell."

"I thought I would go up and do what I can for her tomorrow," Phyllis says.

"Well, you had best wait and see how you feel when tomorrow comes," Anna says. She picks up the empty dinner plate. "I don't mind covering, so don't worry about that. Now, is there anything else you need? I probably won't come up again before Mr Bates and I go home for the night."

Even in her black uniform dress, Anna looks like a holy angel on a Christmas card, and Phyllis wants to cling to her and beg to be taken to the Bateses' cottage, where surely she would be safe. But she takes a steadying breath and says "No, thank you," and Anna nods.

"Well, goodnight, then. I'll ask Daisy or Julia to look in on you when they come up. Sleep well, Miss Baxter."

"The same to you," Phyllis says, and watches desolately as Anna leaves, balancing the plate on one hand. She sits on the edge of the bed for a long time, thinking, and then gets up, undresses—an easier task now that she can put weight on both legs—and crawls under the covers, again without switching off the light, even though they have all been strictly admonished by Mrs Hughes not to waste electricity.

There's a round wind-up clock on her bedside table, in a pale-blue celluloid case with a design of flowers and vines, and she watches its hands move around the face from ten to eleven, click click click, until she feels her eyes growing heavy. Shortly before midnight, Daisy knocks on the door, sent by Anna, and Phyllis rolls over and pretends to be asleep. Soon enough, she really is.

When she wakes up again some time later, the ghost is in her room.


	9. Chapter 9

It comes when she is dreaming, one of the sorts of dreams that make perfect sense as they're happening, but none at all upon waking. She's in a rowboat in the middle of a vast, choppy grey lake, clutching an enamelled box that holds something she knows is very precious, and that she must not lose. The lake lies at the bottom of a valley surrounded by high, craggy hills, wild and beautiful, and there are heavy black storm clouds rolling in above, swallowing up the sky. She can see flashes of distant lightning and smell the ozone in the air, and she knows it isn't safe to be on the water at a time like this, but the boat has no oars and the shore is too far away to swim, even if she knew how. The waves are getting rougher and the boat is rocking, rocking; it's making her sick, and then she's falling and sinking and drowning—

She opens her eyes, and at first she thinks she isn't really awake, but in a new part of the dream. The scent of the oncoming storm is still there, sharp and green and faintly chemical, and she's tangled in something that is as heavy and suffocating as fathoms of murky lake water. She struggles mightily, not caring that the thrashing hurts her half-healed injury, and finally manages to throw off her quilt and sit up. She knows she left the lamp switched on, remembers thinking that Mrs Hughes would have something to say about it later, but now it's as dark as a pocket in her room. In that darkness she can clearly see the glow of the ghost at the foot of her bed.

All the breath leaves her lungs in a rush; she scrambles backward until she's pressed against the bed's low headboard, and the ghost begins to follow, clearly meaning to perform the same rough invasion it inflicted on her the other night. The thought terrifies her so much that she digs down inside herself and finds a previously undiscovered reserve of courage.

"Stop!" she orders, and the ghost pauses, flickering rapidly the way a film does when the projectionist cranks it at the wrong speed. Phyllis doesn't know whether that means it's confused or alarmed or angry, and at the moment, she doesn't care. All she wants is for it to leave.

"I know why you're here," she says to it.

The ghost inclines the part of itself that represents its head, as if to say, _Oh_?

"I haven't been able to look for your name yet. I've not been able to do my work either, for that matter. It's a lucky thing for me that the Crawleys are a kind family, or I might have been dismissed for it. I've been here in this room for three days because I've been hurt, and it happened because you frightened me, so you have no one to blame but yourself."

At this, the ghost surges forward until it is nearly touching her, and she steels herself to keep her eyes open and not turn her face away. She can feel the fierce heat of its substance, and in its depths she can see the brightness of its glow ebbing and flowing, growing warmer in some spots and cooler in others. The hum of its presence fills her ears, her brain, her body, until it feels as if the small bones of her spine are vibrating with it.

"Go away," she says. She hears the quiver of tears in her voice and despises herself for it, but presses on. "If you don't I'll scream the house down and bring everyone running. I'll make them believe me. I'll let them tear your attic apart. I promised I would help you, and I will, but I need more than three days to do it, and I need you to leave me alone while I do. Can you understand that?"

In her heart she knows this is mostly a bluff—that the ghost has locked doors and muffled screams before and can no doubt do it again if it cares to—but she is counting on the force of her will to make it listen, and it does. It pulls back, hesitates, and then it's gone and Phyllis is alone in the dark, scared and sore and shaking, but safe, at least for the moment.

With a soft click, her bedside lamp comes back on, filling the room with warm light, and she looks at the clock and sees it is nearly six in the morning. Daisy and Mrs Patmore will already be down in the kitchen beginning the breakfast preparations, and if she means to go back to her work, even at a reduced level, she must get up and bathe and dress, no matter how she feels. She thinks of waiting, asking Anna to help for one more day, but she may really go mad if she is trapped here alone any longer. She needs movement and activity and people. More than that, she needs to speak to the one friend whom she knows will always try to help her.

Holding fast to that thought, she gets out of bed, wincing a little as her bandaged ankle takes her weight, and begins gathering up her clothes.

She is hoping to snatch a moment alone with Mr Molesley before breakfast, but he's busy serving upstairs, and she doesn't see him at all until he comes rushing in, looking harried, and slides into his seat on the other side of the long table. He doesn't seem to notice she's there at first, more concerned with whether Mr Carson will reprimand him for creating a disruption, but then he catches sight of her and his face lights up.

"Miss Baxter! It's good to see you back."

"It's good to be back," Phyllis says, and means it. Sitting here in the light of morning, surrounded by the familiar faces and rhythms and sounds of her ordinary daily routine, she can almost pretend nothing has happened and there is no ghost upstairs waiting for her. "I'm much indebted to everyone for helping me, and especially to Anna for doing so much extra work."

"She wouldn't have had to if you hadn't been so clumsy," Thomas says, half into his dish of porridge. Phyllis doesn't think he means it for anyone but her to hear, but Mrs Hughes has keen ears and catches every word.

"Anyone can slip and fall, Mr Barrow," she says sharply. "Mind your own breakfast and let Miss Baxter eat hers in peace."

Thomas makes a small, scornful noise at the back of his throat, but he turns his attention to his food, and Phyllis gives Mrs Hughes a grateful look across the table. The housekeeper doesn't quite smile, but the corners of her mouth quirk a little with sympathetic humour before she turns and asks Mr Carson a question about Lord Grantham's schedule for the afternoon.

When the first bell rings and the meal ends, Phyllis leaves the table as fast as she decently can, and mainly by virtue of having a seat nearer the door, manages to intercept Mr Molesley on his way into the boot room.

"I've got to go up to her ladyship in a minute, but—"

"Can you?" His face is full of concern that warms her. "I saw you're still wearing a bandage—er, not that I was looking at your—I just happened to notice."

"It's all right. I'm only going to dress her and do some tidying in her wardrobe; Anna will go up and down the stairs for things until I'm a little stronger. Only I wanted to ask—do you know how I would find out about someone who used to live in this house? I don't think her ladyship knows, not having been born here, and I wouldn't want to bother her with questions anyway. But I thought maybe at the church..."

"Well, that would be a good place to start." Mr Molesley moves out of the way to let a hurrying hall boy pass, lugging one of a pair of andirons. "They'll have all the records for baptisms and weddings and funerals going back ages. That's assuming whoever you want to know about lived here all their life, though. People do move away; not the lords, of course, but the younger sons, and the daughters when they get married."

"I don't know if they'll have lived here always," Phyllis says slowly, considering. All she knows about ghosts comes from those long-ago stories she shared with Thomas and the other children, squeezed together into a dark corner of someone's shed, but she thinks they are meant to stay near the place where they died. "But toward the end of their life, yes."

"That's something to go on," Mr Molesley says. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, looking awkward. "Can I ask why you're wanting to know? I don't mean to pry, but..."

"You're not prying," Phyllis reassures him. "And I'll tell you what I can, when I can, but for the bits I can't tell, just know that it isn't anything wrong or bad."

"I didn't think it was," Molesley says. "Would you like—I mean, I could come with you, when you go to the church. I might be able to help."

"I was hoping you would," Phyllis says, and his face relaxes into a relieved grin. "I think it won't be for a few days, though. I may be on my feet again, but I'm not quite up to walking that far yet."

"Just tell me when you're ready and I'll find a way to go."

"I will," Phyllis promises, and parts from him feeling a pleasant glow that almost counteracts the lingering fear of the ghost.


	10. Chapter 10

In the end, it's more than a week before Phyllis has both the time and the strength to undertake a visit to the church. The delay worries her, but in a way it does her good to fall into the familiar routine of work and meals and bed, where she sleeps restlessly, but remains unmolested by anything supernatural. At last she is able to get an afternoon off, and Mr Carson agrees to let Mr Molesley go as well, though not without grumbling about the absence. After upstairs lunch has been served and cleared away, they meet in the kitchen yard, both wrapped up warm against the bright cold day, and set off on their walk.

Along the way, Phyllis tells a strategically edited version of her reason for wanting to research the house's former inhabitants: that she was in the attic one night, putting away Lady Grantham's box of pictures, and stumbled across something to do with a mysterious Crawley ancestor. Molesley listens, shortening his stride a bit awkwardly to match her slower pace, and asks questions that are perfectly reasonable and yet still make her squirm. Does she know the person's name? No. Does she know if it was a man or a woman, or perhaps a child? No, Phyllis says, feeling shaken by an idea she hadn't considered. She doesn't think the ghost can possibly be a child—it seems simple and single-minded in its desires, but not childlike—but what if it is? She distracts Molesley from this line of questioning by asking how well he knows Reverend Travis, and the ensuing tales of young Joseph being plucked down from apple trees and enduring long, dull catechism lessons keep the conversation in safe territory until the church is in sight.

Being granted permission to look at the registers for births and burials is much easier than Phyllis imagined it would be, perhaps for the very reason that Molesley was a boy here. She herself is treated politely enough in the village, but is still regarded as an outsider, and no doubt will be even if she remains at Downton until the day she dies. Once Molesley has explained that they're working on a sort of history project, they're ushered around the side of the church and into a small, low-ceilinged, whitewashed room that is crammed with bookshelves and smells, not unpleasantly, of yellowing paper and ink, wax candles and dust. As soon as they're left alone, Molesley sneezes violently, twice, and Phyllis has to stifle a highly irreligious giggle. She dips into her handbag and offers him her clean handkerchief, folded into a neat square so the embroidery shows, and he takes it with a nod of thanks.

"Mrs Hughes wouldn't think much of whoever does the cleaning here," she says.

"That's putting it mildly." Molesley starts to give the handkerchief back to her, then reconsiders and tucks it into his pocket instead. "Well, I suppose we'd better get started, hadn't we? Is there anything else at all you can tell me about the person we're looking for? We've got to narrow it down somehow, or we'll be here all night. Er, not literally, of course."

Phyllis thinks about the ghost saying _It has been so long...Everything that is old and lost is here_. She has no idea what would constitute a long time to a ghost, or if it even understands years anymore in the same way she does, but there had been a sense of age to its words—not full of _thees_ and _thous_ and _begats_ like the Bible, but also not the sort of speech she hears around her every day.

"It isn't a modern person, I know that," she says. "Someone born before you or I, and perhaps even before our grandparents."

"Well, that lets out at least one of these," Molesley says, frowning at the row of heavy bound ledgers on the shelf nearest him. "There's a start. What else? Anything's better than nothing."

"And..." She considers how to explain this next bit without revealing too much. "I think it must be someone who died under bad circumstances. Someone who was killed, or had an accident. Not a person who died as an old man in his bed, is what I mean to say."

"Ah," Molesley says. He's giving her a look that is curious and also a little hurt, as if he's personally wounded by her evasiveness. "You know, Miss Baxter, it would be easier if you would just tell me everything. You've trusted me with private things in the past and I've never blabbed them to anyone, have I?"

"No, of course not." Phyllis fidgets with her black winter gloves, which she has just pulled off. "I'd trust you with my life, Mr Molesley. Truly, I would. It isn't that I want to keep anything from you, it's just—I can't, yet. Please believe me."

"I do," he says, and she smiles up at him gratefully. "All right then, let's just begin with the book for the latest year you think is likely, and we'll work back from there. The only thing is, sometimes there's only the name and date of burial, not anything else about the person or how they died. It depends on who wrote the entries at the time. Not everyone cares about history."

"You care about it," Phyllis says.

"Of course," says Molesley, "but no one's put me in charge of it, have they?" He runs his finger along the shelf, selects a book and pulls it out. "Here, this one should do to start."

There's a desk pushed under the room's single window, and at Molesley's insistence, Phyllis sits in the chair to read while he looks on over her shoulder and fetches each new ledger as it's needed. The pages are faded, and some of the spidery old-fashioned handwriting is difficult to make out, especially as the afternoon wears on and the sun begins to sink low in the sky. They read about women who died of childbirth and wasting, men who died of heart trouble and fits, children who died of all the myriad diseases that plague the young and vulnerable, and hundreds and hundreds of people whose troubles are lost to time, as Molesley said they would be.

When the light finally goes, there are only two names that seem promising: one, a servant at the great house who died from a fall, and the other, a young Crawley heir who was killed in a hunting accident aged twenty. Neither of these feels quite right to Phyllis, but it's all they can do for now. She has a cramp in her neck and a headache coming on from squinting over the pages, and Molesley will be wanted to help lay the table and serve at upstairs dinner.

They put everything away carefully, just as they found it, and show themselves out into the chilly, purple-blue twilight to start the walk home. Lamps are going on in windows as they pass, and through drawn-back curtains Phyllis can see meals being prepared and children bursting in after playing out or doing their evening chores. She has lived in grand houses with huge, bustling kitchens for so long that these small-scale domestic scenes look as if they're being acted out in brightly lit dollhouses, and yet there's something pleasing about the sight.

"Penny for them," Molesley says, startling her.

"Oh—nothing," she says. "Only thinking how nice and cosy the houses look in the cold. It'll be good to get in and warm up."

They walk up the lane without saying much more, and by the time they've crossed the open field and reached the long, tree-lined avenue that leads to the big house, an icy headwind has sprung up and Phyllis needs all her breath just to keep going. Her still-healing ankle is beginning to feel weak and sore; she stumbles over a muddy rut in the road, and Mr Molesley has to grab her by the arm to stop her from falling.

"Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm fine. Thank you." One of his hands is under her elbow and the other one on her shoulder, and even through her coat and his gloves, she imagines she can feel a small, welcome glow of heat at each point. He holds on just long enough to steady her and then lets go, leaving her strangely bereft.

"It's been too much for you, making this trip," he says.

"I had to."

"I know, Phyllis, but _why_? What's so important about some old dead Crawley?"

"That's one of the parts I can't tell." They've started walking again, and she's looking down at the road to be sure of her footing, which has the added benefit of letting her avoid his eyes. She has not lied to him once since this began, but somehow it feels as if she's lying to him with every word.

"Well, if you can't tell, then you can't tell," Molesley says. "But did you find what you were after, at least? I'd hate to think you've put yourself through all this for nothing."

She starts to say _I'm not sure_ , but just then they reach the end of the avenue and Downton is there, hulking against the backdrop of field and sky like a massive ship sailing through an ocean of grass. It's almost completely dark now, and every window on the lower floors is ablaze with light, but Phyllis's gaze is irresistibly drawn to the black upper panes that she knows belong to the attic, and to the ghost. Her gloved fingers curl round the slip of paper in her coat pocket where she's written the two names they found. What will it do to her if neither is right?

"What's the matter? We ought to go in, it's freezing."

"Not yet," Phyllis says, even though her face hurts from the cold and she can't feel the tip of her nose. "I just want to look at the house for a moment, from the outside."

Molesley looks perplexed, but he acquiesces and stands patiently beside her, until at last she resigns herself to the inevitable and starts toward the gravelled drive that will lead them round to their own entrance.

"Thank you for coming with me, Mr Molesley," she says when they reach the kitchen yard. "It was—well, you've no idea how much I appreciated it."

"I wanted to help you," Molesley says. "If there's anything else I can do—anything at all—"

"I'll tell you," Phyllis says.

He opens the door for her, and they step into the heart of the downstairs pre-dinner whirlwind. Mrs Patmore and Daisy are shouting at each other over a tray of individual soufflés while a fat grey housecat sits watching them, no doubt knowing from experience that this is when things are usually spilt and available for snatching. Mr Carson storms past and booms out "Molesley! Upstairs now!" and with an apologetic look, Molesley hurries away to change into his livery.

Phyllis breathes out a sigh and starts up to take off her hat and coat and get into her own working attire. She's halfway there when it suddenly occurs to her that Mr Molesley called her by her Christian name for the first time ever, and that it felt so natural neither of them noticed. She supposes she ought to be affronted at the familiarity, but even though she's tired and aching and dreading what comes next, the thought makes her smile to herself as she climbs the rest of the stairs.


	11. Chapter 11

Late that night, Phyllis lies in bed with the folded-over slip of paper she brought from the church clasped in her hand. She has opened it and looked at the names a dozen times throughout the evening, whenever she can spare a few seconds from her work, and the more she sees them, the more she is certain they are wrong. Margaret White, died 1785, and Jonathan Crawley, died 1842, may very well live on in their own afterlife somewhere, but neither of them is her ghost. She feels it deep inside, as if the ghost left some residue of itself behind when it possessed her body, some awareness primed to recognise its own identity. She will go up to the attic and present them anyway, as proof of her good faith, but not tonight. Tonight she is too tired, and too cold.

The temperature has been plummeting ever since she and Mr Molesley came back, and it's frigid in her room, even with a woollen blanket layered under her quilt and a hot-water bottle tucked in at her feet. She thinks of Lady Grantham on the floor below, sleeping safe beneath her heavy eiderdown with a fire to keep her warm and Lord Grantham by her side, and then thinks of Mr Molesley and wonders how he's faring in his own room on the other side of the locked door. Mr Carson said at dinner that snow is expected overnight, which means all the men will have to get up early to clear the drive. It worries her to think of Molesley out there wielding a shovel before dawn; he's not so very young, after all, and he has already done so much extra work today to help her, even without knowing why. If only she could tell him everything...

When she finally falls asleep, it happens entirely without her noticing, the transition from waking to dreaming is so smooth. Molesley has been in her thoughts, and at first he is in her dream as well, dressed in his winter coat and cap, holding out one of the heavy ledgers from the church.

 _We missed a book_ , he says, _but I went back and found the right one for you._

He opens the cover, and she leans forward, eager to learn the truth at last, but then looks up at him in confusion.

 _The pages are blank,_ she says, and he shakes his head sadly, as if she has disappointed him.

 _The answer's there_ , he says. _You've got to look._

 _I have looked,_ Phyllis protests.

 _Not hard enough_ , Molesley says. _You've got to really look, Phyllis. You've got to look out. Look out!_

The ground sways violently beneath her, and Phyllis turns around and finds she is in the oarless rowboat again, on the grey lake under the thunderous clouds. In her arms is the priceless box, its ornate surface dull in the stormy light. A wave rocks the boat, and she sits down hard on the bottom boards, in a puddle of cold mineral-smelling lake water. The box falls into her lap and she clutches at it desperately with wet, trembling hands, turns it over and sees that embedded in the pattern of light and dark green enamel, there is a letter C picked out in silver.

 _C is for Crawley_ , she thinks, and then flinches and cries out, hunching over the box to protect it, as lightning splits the sky and a massive crack of thunder follows right on top. The boat lurches, but before she can fall into the water, she wakes up, heart hammering wildly, sweat soaking her hair despite the bitter cold. Certain that the ghost will be there, as it was the last time she had the dream, she flings her arms up in self-defence, but then lowers them as she realises she is alone in the dark. The room is silent except for the soft tick of the clock, which tells her it is ten minutes past three in the morning.

Phyllis sits up in bed and hugs her knees under the covers, counting the ticks until her heartbeat slows and she feels calm enough to lie down again. It's clear she won't be sleeping any more tonight—she has never felt so wide awake in her life—so how will she use this time?

What she would like to do is go out into the corridor, unlock the dividing door, walk into Mr Molesley's room as bold as brass, and wake him up to explain everything that has happened to this point. She doesn't normally question the rules of working in service, which she knows from hard experience are there to prevent just such relationships as the one that ruined her, but at the moment it seems silly that she is stuck on this side of the door and he on the other. She isn't going to do anything improper with him (though if she is honest with herself, she can admit that part of her wants to, even knowing the cost), so why should they not talk?

Well, she thinks, there _is_ someone she can talk to, and must talk to, whether she wishes to or not. The paper with the two names is still clenched between her fingers, somewhat crumpled, but intact; she smooths it out and then folds it carefully again, in half and then in quarters. She will go up and show it to the ghost and see how it reacts—not tomorrow or next week, but now, while she is still feeling brave and defiant.

Sliding out of bed, she puts on her dressing gown, and then for good measure, she takes the blanket as well, wrapping it around herself like a cloak against the cold. There are fine traceries of ice in the corners of her window, and she thinks surely it must be snowing by now. The idea of soft white snow falling on the roof, covering it over like icing sugar, is a soothing contrast to the wild electrical storm in her dream. She keeps it fixed in her mind as she opens the door to her room, peers into the empty corridor, and then steps out, trailing the blanket behind her.

On silent slippered feet, she pads over to the attic door, and feels a sense of inevitability when she sees it is open again. Of course it is. The ghost has been waiting for her to come; it doesn't want her to be shut out. Phyllis looks back over her shoulder at the dividing door, closed up tight as a safe, and thinks how unfair it is that the door she wants to go through is barred against her, while the one she dreads is standing open to invite her in.

She suffers a brief urge to turn and flee back to her room while she still can, but squares her shoulders and pulls the door open just enough to ease through. As she does, the lamp on the wall nearest her dims and goes out.

She climbs the stairs with only a twinge or two from her ankle, opens the door at the top, and enters the attic proper for the first time in nearly two weeks. Not really expecting anything to happen, she finds the dangling light cord and pulls it, and is surprised when a single bulb comes alive, sickly and flickering, but enough for her to find her way through the clutter. Everything is as precariously piled and packed in as ever, though she can see the dusty outlines on the floor where the hall boys have been up to collect the Christmas decorations and haul them downstairs in preparation for the season. She squeezes her way through to the place where she first saw the ghost—at least a thousand years ago, or so it seems—and there it is, already facing in her direction as if it has been expecting her, its glow pulsing with recognition.

Phyllis unwraps her blanket, lays it over the nearest box, and puts her hand into the pocket of her dressing gown, where the folded paper crackles under her fingers. She feels half sick with fright, but when she speaks her voice is surprisingly steady.

"I have something," she says. "I don't know if it's right, but it's all I've found so far. If I show it to you, can you read it?"

The ghost extends a long, wavering part of itself toward her, and she gasps and takes an instinctive step back, but then realises it is trying to make a human gesture of reaching out, the same way she would put out her hand to receive something.

"Wait," Phyllis says, and drawing the paper out of her pocket, unfolds it and spreads it out on the floor in front of her. "There. Now you can look."

She edges away as the ghost drifts forward and hovers over the paper, seeming to inspect it for a long time before turning its attention back to her. The indistinct features of its face sharpen and shift, creating a projection that could be a nose, then a shadow like a mouth, then dark hollows that might represent eyes, but all dissolve away almost as soon they are formed. It reaches toward her again, with two pseudo-arms this time, but stops short of touching her, and she understands that it is trying to obey what she asked of it last time they met, and at the same time making a request.

She doesn't want to do it—had hoped there would never be a need again—but now that she is here, she sees there is no other way. It isn't enough for her to speak to the ghost; she also must be able to hear what it has to say.

Shaking, but resolute, she faces it and spreads out her own arms, matching its gesture.

"Come into me," she says.


	12. Chapter 12

The ghost hesitates, as if it can't quite believe what she has said. Phyllis can hardly believe it either, but she presses on, knowing she must get this done before she loses her nerve.

"Yes, I'm inviting you. I'll let you in, only just try—" Her voice breaks on a sob, and she clenches her hands into fists and forces out the rest of the words. "Try not to hurt me this time. I've been hurt enough lately."

The ghost moves forward purposefully, and Phyllis closes her eyes, not wanting to see the moment when it touches her, even though she can feel the heat and crackle of its presence drawing closer. The sensation intensifies almost past the limits of what she can bear, and then eases a bit as the ghost finishes merging with her and adjusts itself to fit as best it can. It is still painful and unpleasant and intrusive, but she finds that, like many things, it is marginally more tolerable when she allows it rather than struggling against it.

She opens her eyes, lets out her breath, and watches a cloud of the ghost's glowing substance stream out from her nose and mouth before being pulled back. As a little girl, she was once taken to see a magic-lantern show about the northern lights, and the glow reminds her of those images, only it isn't a coloured slide projected for her entertainment. It is real, and that makes it infinitely more beautiful, and more terrifying. The amazement almost distracts her from what is happening until the ghost interrupts.

 _These names are not right. These names are not mine._ The voice in her head is sulky, almost petulant, and she wonders for a moment if the ghost could be a child after all, or whether it has simply been changed and reduced by its long half-life.

"I thought they might not be," Phyllis says, "but I wanted you to see I've been trying. My friend helped me—"

 _You have told someone? You have broken your promise?_ The ghost starts to swell furiously, and Phyllis lets out a strangled groan, brought back in an instant to the mortal weakness of her own body.

"I haven't," she says through gritted teeth. "I asked him to help me look for names, but I didn't tell him about you. Believe me, it would have been easier if I could have done. Stop, _stop_ , you're hurting!"

The ghost subsides, and she tries to breathe slowly and relax.

 _I am sorry,_ it says. _I have forgot what it is to feel pain. I have forgot so many things._

"Is there nothing you can remember?" Phyllis asks. She is beginning to feel rather desperate. "I need to know more before I can find your name. I've looked at so many of them and none of them are right. Anything at all about when you lived, or how you died, or if you were a man or a woman—"

For an endless moment, the ghost is very still within her, and she understands that it is considering this. At last, hesitantly, it says, _You are a woman?_

"Yes."

 _Then I think I must have been a man. Yes. I was not the same as you. I was a man. I am a man. You are a woman and I am a man._

"Well, at least we've got that settled," Phyllis says. "I think it will help. Thank you."

 _You are welcome_ , the ghost says. It seems almost distracted, as if remembering this fact about itself has given it something new to think about for the first time in a century. _I will go now._

"Not yet," Phyllis says, even though all she wants in the world just now is for it to leave her. "There's another thing."

 _What is the other thing?_

"I've had a dream," she says. "Twice now. It's so strange, and so real, I feel as if it must mean something. It's about a lake in a deep valley, and a storm, and a green and silver box. Do you know any of those things?"

 _Yes,_ the ghost says. _I had a box like that, once. I have seen a lake and a valley and a storm. They are some of my only memories._

"When did you see them? Where are they?"

 _That I cannot remember,_ the ghost says sorrowfully.

"Not at all?"

 _Not at all,_ the ghost says. It begins to stir, growing restless, and she can't hold back another moan of pain as its substance stretches muscles and tendons inside her, compresses her heart and lungs until she feels dizzy. Black spots are beginning to swim in front of her eyes, and she struggles to stay focused and finish saying what she wants to say.

"Wait," she says. "I need to ask a favour of you."

 _What?_

"Let me tell my friend," Phyllis says. "Please. I won't bring him here to disturb you, but if I tell him more about you, he might know something that can help. I'm from away, but he's lived here all his life. People will talk to him in a way they won't to me."

 _Is he one of the family that own this house?_

"No."

 _Tell him if you must,_ the ghost says. _I am going._

It flows out of her, away from her, and then it is gone and she is on the floor and unconsciousness is threatening to swallow her up again.

 _Not this time_ , she tells herself, and digging her nails into her palms, she puts her head down and fights off the wave that wants to carry her away. It subsides gradually, but it does subside, and she is able to make her way down the stairs, clinging to the handrail as if it's a life preserver, and along the corridor to her room.

Once there, she falls onto the bed and lies still for a minute before summoning the strength to curl up on her side, wrapped in the blanket that she only just remembered to bring back with her. The clock tick-ticks and tells her that it is almost four; the whole ordeal has taken less than an hour.

The next thing she knows, Daisy is banging on doors, making the morning wake-up rounds, and she sits up to see the room filled with cold blue-grey light and snow piled up on the slant of her windowpane. Her face in the washstand mirror is haggard, with bruised dark circles under the eyes, and she feels as fragile as a blown-out eggshell, but she dutifully washes and dresses and goes down to the servants' hall to eat bread and butter that she doesn't want and drink tea that she desperately does. It's a shame she can't ask Mrs Patmore to fortify it with a shot of medicinal whisky this time, she thinks, downing the last of her third cup.

She has finished eating and is on her way up to Lady Grantham's room with the heavy breakfast tray when she encounters Molesley, who apparently has gone straight from moving snow to serving in the morning room. His nose and the tips of his ears are still pink with cold, and she can feel it coming off him even in his livery, as if it has sunk in past his heavy clothing all the way to his core. Thinking of him dressed in his winter coat brings her dream back to her in full force, and she imagines for an instant that he is going to turn to her and say _You've got to really look, Phyllis, you've got to look out._ If he does, she thinks, she will go mad right here on the spot, and then nothing else that happens will matter.

"Have I missed breakfast?" he asks instead, casting a yearning glance at the tray.

"Not if you hurry. Stop breathing all over her Ladyship's toast and go get a piece of your own." She says it with a smile to show him she isn't really scolding, and he grins back, crookedly, and turns to leave.

"Oh, Mr Molesley—" Phyllis wonders if she could get away with a "Joseph," considering his lapse last night, but decides this isn't the time or the place. "I need to talk to you later, in private."

"Is it about yesterday?"

Phyllis nods and climbs the first few steps. "Very much about yesterday. I've got to go tend to her Ladyship, and you need your breakfast, but—just please remember."

"Of course." He glances up at her, and seems to really notice her face for the first time this morning. "Er...I don't like to say so, but you look awfully tired. Is everything all right?"

"It was a long night," Phyllis says. "I'll tell you all about it when we talk. Go on now."


	13. Chapter 13

Phyllis spends a good portion of the ensuing day wondering where she and Mr Molesley can have their talk. The servants' hall is out of the question, as are most of the downstairs rooms, where anyone might walk in at any moment. The yard is a better choice, but people are in and out of it all evening, and there are too many places where someone might lurk round a corner and listen. She has never been particularly stealthy herself—in the Peter Coyle days it was he who arranged their meetings and told her where to go and what to do—and so at last, in desperation, she turns to the one person at Downton whom she knows is good at this sort of thing.

She finds him huddled up against a wall in the yard, trying to keep himself and his cigarette out of the wind. The snowfall has slowed to occasional flurries, but it's still bitterly cold outside, and neither of them is wearing a coat.

"I need your help," she says without preamble.

"Oh?" Thomas flicks his cigarette ash onto the frozen paving stones. "And why do you think I'll be inclined to help you?"

"We have a history, you and I," Phyllis says. "I think that's worth one favour."

Thomas folds his arms over the immaculate front of his uniform jacket and stares her down. "Tell me what you want help with and I'll decide whether to do it or not."

"I need to find a private place for a conversation. Someplace safe in the house or grounds where no one will interrupt."

"And with whom might you be having this conversation?"

"With Mr Molesley," Phyllis says, bracing herself for the response she knows is coming.

"Molesley, is it? I ought to have known." Thomas's eyes are heavy-lidded with languid amusement. "Really, Miss Baxter. I thought you'd learnt your lesson about doing wicked things with footmen. Do you want me to procure you some prophylactics as well? I hear they're making them out of latex now. Very modern."

"It's got nothing to do with that," Phyllis says shortly. "And if it did, I certainly wouldn't involve you of all people in it. Do you know a place where we can talk or don't you?"

"I might," Thomas says. "When are you planning on talking?"

"Tonight, after we've finished work."

"Mmm. Well, if I were going to have a _conversation_ -" He draws the word out with rich sarcasm that makes Phyllis wish she could clip him round the ear like the seven-year-old he used to be. "I'd have it in that little room at the back of the barn where they keep the spare parts and petrol for the cars. No one goes in there after dark, and you'll be alone for as long as you like."

"Is it locked?"

"Not at all. It's stupid, really. Those bits of motor aren't cheap; anyone could steal them and sell them for a tidy profit. But you and Molesley will be too busy talking for that, won't you?" He shoots her a sly grin, then drops his cigarette and grinds it out with the heel of his shoe. "Don't worry, I won't spy on you. That's one sort of conversation I'm not interested in."

"It really isn't what you're thinking," Phyllis says.

Thomas snorts a laugh. "I don't care, Miss Baxter. Good for you, if it is. I may not be able to have what I want in this life, but that doesn't mean no one else should."

He bends, picks up the crushed cigarette end and starts to go into the house, but then turns and looks back at her.

"If you get caught, though, I'll say I didn't know anything about it."

"I know," Phyllis says. "Thank you, Mr Barrow."

He waves a dismissive hand and departs, leaving her to think about the next challenge, which is how to explain the ghost to Molesley without sounding like a madwoman. They have touched on the subject before, that afternoon in the tea shop, but she knows perfectly well that he thought they were having a theoretical discussion, not a real one. The ghost is easy enough to believe in once you've seen it, but without that proof, she thinks he will probably be afraid for her sanity, as she would fear for his if the situation were reversed. She wrestles with the problem until Anna appears and tells her that Lady Grantham's bell is ringing, and then goes upstairs still wondering what to do.

At dinner that night she's too nervous to eat, pushing the potatoes around on her plate and nearly knocking her water glass over the table. Thomas, sitting beside her, kicks her shoe accidentally-on-purpose and whispers "Pull yourself together," and glancing up, Phyllis sees Mr Molesley watching her across the table in a way that makes her even more anxious. Perhaps she should forget the idea of telling him at all, she thinks—but then without his help, she may never be free of the ghost. She has not survived the years in prison only to become a prisoner again, held hostage by a dead man.

Somehow she gets through the rest of the meal and her evening tasks, and when she comes downstairs after seeing Lady Grantham to bed, Molesley is waiting for her in the servants' hall, sat in one of the battered old armchairs and holding a book that he clearly isn't reading. He looks up at her expectantly as she approaches, and all but leaps from his seat when she says, as casually as she can, "I'm going outside for a breath of air before bed, Mr Molesley; why don't you come too?"

As they leave, Thomas, on the other side of the room, catches her eye and makes a filthy gesture with the forefinger of one hand and the curled thumb and forefinger of the other, which Molesley fortunately doesn't notice, but which makes Phyllis's face burn with embarrassment. She pictures Lady Mary at her haughtiest, lifts her chin to just that angle, and walks out with Molesley trailing in her wake, trying not to listen to Thomas sniggering behind them. The Lady Mary impression carries her all the way through fetching boots and coats, then out to the yard, where Molesley stops, assuming this is where they will be talking.

"Not here," she says. "Follow me."

"Where are we going?"

"Someplace quieter. Don't worry."

She leads him round the side of the house, grateful that the snow here is not too deep, and then along the path to the barn. It's silent except for the mournful sigh of the wind and the crunching of their boots, and she thinks if things were different, this would be the right time to take his hand, fold her gloved fingers into his and be comforted. But the situation is what it is, and so they walk on, together but separate, until they circle the side of the barn and reach the door to the storeroom. It's unlocked, just as Thomas said it would be, and Phyllis looks over her shoulder to be sure no one is watching and then hustles a rather reluctant Molesley inside, pulling the door shut behind them.

Inside, the room smells strongly of oil and petrol, but when she closes the shutters and switches on the light, it's perfectly clean and orderly—Mr Branson, who still oversees the maintenance of all the cars, won't stand for anything less. Spare tyres and tubes in different sizes hang on the wall; neatly labelled cartons of parts are arranged on shelves; and there's a table with manuals and schematics and catalogues for ordering more of everything. It's a strange place to discuss ghosts and hauntings, but then she supposes any place would be strange for such a subject.

"Are you certain it's all right for us to be here?" Molesley looks uncomfortable, and she hopes he isn't having the same sorts of suspicions about her motives as Thomas had.

"We won't be long," she assures him. "I just wanted to make quite sure no one would be listening. What I need to tell you is—well, it's something I wouldn't tell anyone else on this earth." Thinking that he, at least, ought to be sitting down for this, she looks around for a chair, but there isn't one. She pulls up a pair of wooden crates instead, and they sit facing each other, still in their coats.

Phyllis draws a deep breath and begins.

"Do you remember when we went for tea together and I asked what you thought about ghosts?"

"Of course," Molesley says.

"And I told you a story about a woman who had actually seen one?"

He nods, and she swallows hard and tries to be brave for the next bit.

"That wasn't a lie. I would never lie to you. But...it wasn't quite the whole truth, either."

Molesley frowns, and she plunges ahead before she can lose her momentum.

"I was the one who saw the ghost. Oh please, Mr Molesley, please don't look at me that way. I know how it sounds, but I swear to you, on my Bible oath, I have seen a ghost, in Downton, more than once." Phyllis intends to say all this calmly, but by the time she gets to the end she's on the verge of tears, half in terror that he won't believe her and half in relief at having told someone. She had thought when she confessed her past crimes to him that nothing could possibly be worse, but it seems she has found the one thing that is.

She buries her face in her hands.

"I'm not mad," she says in a muffled voice. "I'm really not, Mr Molesley."

There is a long pause, and she thinks he will simply get up and walk out into the dark, leaving her alone. But then she feels him lean forward, closer than he has ever been to her, so close she can smell the shaving soap and brilliantine he uses, and his fingers are encircling her wrists and very, very gently pulling her hands away from her face. She blinks at him, frightened and confused and hopeful, and then he says:

"I believe you."


	14. Chapter 14

Phyllis has been holding on to her composure by a thread, and this sudden, unexpected acceptance undoes her completely. Now she's really crying, the ugly, messy, humiliating sort of crying that makes her nose run, and she doesn't have a handkerchief because she gave hers to Mr Molesley yesterday.

Molesley himself looks mildly panicked by her outburst, but he digs into his pockets, produces that same handkerchief—washed and ironed and re-folded—and holds it out to her.

"I was meaning to give it back to you anyway," he says.

Phyllis doesn't trust herself to speak, but she takes the handkerchief with a nod of thanks. He starts to draw his hand back, then puts it out again, hovering just above her shoulder like a bird unsure if it should land on a branch. When she doesn't pull away, he gives her a clumsy but heartfelt squeeze through her coat, and then clasps both hands in his lap and waits for her to be finished.

"I'm so sorry," she manages to say eventually. "I know it's disgraceful. I just—I wasn't certain you'd believe me. Do you really?"

"I do," Molesley says. "I told you before that I've never seen a ghost, and I haven't, but I know you, Miss Baxter. You're not mad or a liar. If you saw something, then there must have been something to see." He pauses. "And it explains a lot. You've been so unhappy lately, I've been afraid something was really wrong."

"It was," Phyllis says, still blotting at tears. She feels weak and shaky, but also much, much better, as if she's lanced a festering wound and let the poison come pouring out.

"Tell me."

"You already know some of it," she says. "I meant it when I said I hadn't lied to you. I did go up to the attic to put away Lady Grantham's box, and I did see something to do with a Crawley ancestor."

"And that thing was a ghost?"

"Yes." Phyllis bites her lip, remembering it. "I only saw it for a moment or two that time. It was—it was looking for something. It told me so, later."

"It spoke to you? How? No, wait, that's getting too far ahead. Tell me more about the first time."

She goes through the whole story—the power cut, the ghost seeing her, its strange electrical heat and energy—and then moves on to their next encounter. This one is harder to tell, and when she explains how the ghost took possession of her body and the pain of that, Molesley looks horrified.

"But that sounds like—I mean—was it—"

"No," she says firmly. "It wasn't. It was intimate, in a way, but it wasn't...like what you're thinking. I could hear it, then, but not exactly with my ears, and it told me it had forgot its name and asked me to help find out who it was. I said I would, but I didn't realise then how badly I'd hurt myself falling on the stairs, or that it would be days and days before I could do anything."

"And that's why you were so anxious to get to the church?"

Phyllis nods. "I needed to make a start, and all I knew then was that it had been one of the Crawley family, sometime. But I know more now, at least a little, because I went back last night and spoke to it again. I had to show it the names we found, and I had to ask it about my dream."

"What dream?"

She explains both instances of the dream to him as best she can, leaving out the part in which he made an appearance for fear of embarrassing him, and then tells how it connects to the ghost's memories of its life, such as they are.

"And that's all?"

"That's the whole of it," Phyllis confirms. Telling the tale has been like reliving the entire experience, and it's left her so exhausted that she feels she could curl up on a pile of crates and go to sleep right now. She checks her wristwatch and sees it's getting very late; they will have to go back to the house soon or risk being shut out.

Mr Molesley, for his part, is thinking deeply, sat forward on his crate with his elbows resting on his knees. There's a fine film of perspiration on his forehead, which could be from anxiety, or could be because the little room has grown very warm, despite the wind and snow outside. She looks down at the damp, crumpled handkerchief lying in her lap and wonders if she should offer it to him again.

"What do you want to do next?" he asks at last.

"What I really want is for you to see it." Phyllis twists the handkerchief into a ball between her hands. "I know you believe me, but I hardly believe myself. I'd feel better if you had seen it too and knew it was really real. Only I told it—him—that I wouldn't bring you there and cause a disturbance." She laughs a little, feebly. "Maybe I should borrow Daisy's Brownie camera and take a photograph. You could sell it to the newspapers later. Joseph Molesley, Ghost Hunter."

"Well, it mightn't be a bad idea to get some sort of proof if we can," Molesley says. "But aside from that, lots of people go up to the attic. If I went on my own, as if I were going to fetch a box or something, it wouldn't know you'd sent me, and I might see it then."

"I doubt it," Phyllis says. "It knows things. I don't know how, but it does. I'd gone up dozens of times and never saw it until it decided to show itself to me. I expect if you went up alone, it would just be...wherever it is when it's not there."

Molesley rubs his hand through his thinning hair. "Well, suppose you go up and talk to it first, and while it's distracted, I creep in and have a look?"

"We'll see," Phyllis says, though the thought of Mr Molesley being there and seeing the ghost possess her is a terrible one. She would sooner allow him to watch her in the bath. "But there's something else you can do as well. I thought that now we know a bit more, if you asked around in the village, someone might have heard a story that fits with the dream, one that wouldn't be in the death records. That box isn't a thing people would forget easily if they'd once seen it, and I don't think it's something the Crawleys would just leave to gather dust up in the attic, either. You know how proud his Lordship is of those snuffboxes of his."

"Is it a snuffbox, do you think?"

"No, it's bigger than that. More the size you would keep letters in, or hairbrushes. In the dream I have to hold it like this." Phyllis crosses her arms over her chest to show him. "I can draw it for you if you like, when we go back."

"We should probably do that now," Molesley says, with regret. "I don't want to, but it must be gone midnight."

"Almost." Phyllis turns the face of her watch around for him to see. "Will you ask, though? About the box and the lake, and all of it?"

"Of course," Molesley says. He stands and offers his hand to help her up, and she clasps it willingly. "I'll start with my dad, when I go down to visit him on Sunday. He's nearly eighty; he's seen a lot, and he knows a hundred old stories from his own dad and granddad. He won't gossip, either, if I ask him not to."

"That would be wonderful," Phyllis says. "Thank you so much, Mr Molesley. For everything. You've been such a good friend to me, and I—" She feels the prickle of tears behind her eyes again and breaks off, not wanting to make another scene. "Well, I'm grateful for it. More than I can say."

"It's my honour to be your friend, Miss Baxter," Molesley says, and his voice is abnormally gruff, as if he's containing some emotion of his own. "No thanks needed."

The sharp bite of outdoor cold is refreshing at first after the stuffy room, but by the time they get back to the yard, Phyllis is shivering and the tips of her fingers are going numb. They walk quietly, not speaking even in whispers so as to avoid attracting attention, and then Molesley reaches out to turn the knob on the kitchen door and finds it won't move.

"Oh dear Lord, it isn't locked already, is it?" Phyllis crowds in closer, right up against his shoulder, too panicked to worry about propriety. "Please tell me it isn't."

"It is," Molesley says. "Mr Carson must have made his rounds already. What do we do?"

"We'll have to knock and hope he's still downstairs to hear it," Phyllis says.

"We'll be in awful trouble if we do."

"We'll freeze to death if we don't." She hesitates, then strips off a glove and raises her hand to rap on the panel, but before her knuckles can make contact, they both hear the rattle of the lock being undone from the inside, and the door swings open, revealing Thomas's dark, handsome shape outlined against the dim light that burns in the kitchen all night.

"Well, well," he says in an undertone. "A pair of desperate vagrants at my door. I'm terribly sorry, but we only dispense charity at major holidays. You'll have to come back at Christmas."

Molesley opens his mouth to say something that will probably start a quarrel, but Phyllis cuts in smoothly.

"It's very kind of you to come down and let us in, Mr Barrow. I'm afraid we lost track of time."

"Oh, I'm sure you did," Thomas says. He stands aside and lets first her, then Molesley pass, before closing the door again and turning the key in the lock. "You had better go and get those coats off before Mr Carson sees you. He's still roaming about looking for things to criticise in the morning. You first, Molesley."

Molesley looks mutinous, but says "Goodnight, Miss Baxter" and heads off down the corridor, already undoing his coat buttons.

"I thought you were planning to pretend you knew nothing if we were caught," Phyllis says to Thomas, who is watching her with a smug, infuriating grin.

"Doesn't count if I'm the one who catches you," he says. "I'm surprised at you, Miss Baxter. I assumed you'd manage to wrap things up in time to get back into the house, at least."

Phyllis would dearly love to fire back a retort, but on balance she thinks it best to let it go. They're safely inside the house, after all, and she wouldn't put it past Thomas to go carrying tales to Mr Carson if she annoys him too much.

"Goodnight, Mr Barrow," she says, and turns on her heel to follow Mr Molesley down the corridor.

"It must have been good," Thomas calls after her softly. "You look happier than you've looked in weeks."


	15. Chapter 15

After so much has happened all at once, the next two days seem to pass with a thick, treacle-like slowness. Phyllis is worn out from late nights and broken sleep, and it's all she can do to keep up with her work and put on a pleasant face for Lady Grantham, who wants to chat about the upcoming Christmas holidays, and the time she plans to spend at the London house afterward, while dressing for the afternoon. Mostly to keep up her end of the conversation, Phyllis asks whether she knows much about the history of the Crawley family and their homes, and Cora laughs and says she tried to learn when she was first married, but all the names ran together and she couldn't stay awake.

"Don't tell the Dowager Countess I said so," she adds, which Phyllis thinks is unlikely to be a problem, as she has barely exchanged ten words with Lady Violet in her life. She gives Cora a dutiful smile in the mirror and slides one last pin into the dark coils of her hair, and then Cora startles her by saying, "You know, Baxter, if you're really interested, there's a book in the library about the family's history. The old Earl hired someone to research and write it years ago, when Lord Grantham was only a boy. It's a bit dry, I'm afraid, but full of information. I'm sure his Lordship would let you look at it if you promised to be careful."

"Do you really think so, milady?"

"He'd probably be excited that someone cared," Cora says lightly. "Goodness knows his children never have. He's away until Monday afternoon, but remind me when he comes back and I'll ask him."

"Thank you, milady, that would be very kind."

"It's no trouble." She examines the selection of jewellery Phyllis has laid out for her. "I think the double strand of pearls with this dress, don't you?"

In a bit of a fog, Phyllis clasps the pearls round Cora's pale, elegant neck and kneels to do up the buckles on her shoes, and as soon as she's been dismissed, hurries downstairs to replace the rejected jewels and then look for Mr Molesley, who is nowhere in sight at first. She looks for him in the boot room and the butler's pantry and the kitchen, and finally goes out through the back door and finds him spreading salt and grit in the snowy yard.

"Good heavens, Mr Molesley, shouldn't one of the outdoor men be doing that?" She comes out to meet him, treading carefully because the cobbles nearest the door are still slick, and he leans his shovel against the wheelbarrow and mops his forehead, with his own handkerchief this time. His warm breath puffs out white in the frosty air, reminding Phyllis rather uneasily of the ghost's aura.

"Should they? Yes. But they're not, because our friend Mr Barrow thinks I still owe him for letting us into the house the other night. He's stuck me with every rotten job he can think of ever since. I ought to have known he couldn't do something just out of the goodness of his heart."

Phyllis sighs. "Well, he probably did do it out of the goodness of his heart in the moment. He just realised later that he could have some fun with you over it. He's always been that way. Do you want me to speak to him?"

"Would you? I don't like to ask, but it's getting to be too much, especially on top of clearing the drive every morning." He picks up the shovel again and pushes it under a heap of grit. "I wish this weather would break."

"Mr Carson says it will, soon," Phyllis says. "You're still going to see your father tomorrow, aren't you?"

"Yes," Molesley says. "He looks forward to it too much for me to miss a Sunday, and anyway I've got to ask him our questions." He hesitates. "I don't suppose—would you like to come with me? Dad wouldn't mind."

"I would love to," Phyllis says regretfully, "but I've already had too much time off, these last weeks, and I don't want to take advantage of her Ladyship's kindness. Speaking of which, when I was dressing her just now, she told me that there's a book about the Crawley family in the library. I never would have thought it, but she says it's there and his Lordship might let me look at it when he comes home."

"Oh." Molesley looks rather deflated by this. "Perhaps you won't need me to ask around after all, then." He dumps a load of grit onto the ground instead of scattering it evenly the way he's meant to, and then has to spread it out as best he can with the back of the shovel.

"Don't be silly, of course I will. We'll see what your dad has to say, and then we'll—what do you call it?—cross-reference with the book. There may not even be anything there, anyway. If our ghost is someone with a scandalous story, the old Earl certainly wouldn't have wanted that recorded for posterity, would he?"

"You're probably right." Relief transforms his face, and Phyllis can't help smiling. She's never known a man who wears his emotions this way, like a banner for the whole world to see. She knows people look down on him because of it, but to her it is not only endearing, but reassuring. With Mr Molesley there can never be any deception or obscuring of his real feelings; she always knows exactly where she stands with him, and that makes her feel safer than she ever has in her life.

"Well, he says, "I'll just get back to work on this, then, or I'll still be gritting when it's time to leave tomorrow. And you had better go back inside before you catch your death of cold. Will I see you later?"

"At dinner," Phyllis says. "I'll be doing her Ladyship's hand washing all afternoon. Oh—it's snowing again."

"Is it?" Molesley tips his face up to the sky just in time for a lazily drifting snowflake to land in the middle of his forehead, and in a sudden burst of daring, Phyllis reaches up, touches a fingertip to it, and holds up the nearly melted flake to show him.

Molesley grimaces. "How soon did Mr Carson say the weather would change?"

"Not soon enough," Phyllis says. "Don't stay out too long, or you'll catch your death as well, and I'll be sure to find Mr Barrow and tell him to let you alone. He's making entirely too much fuss over this. I've told him twice now we were only talking."

She suspects that Molesley wants to ask what Mr Barrow thinks they were doing instead, but before he can, she's back across the yard, through the door and into the blessedly warm kitchen, which smells of the beef stew they'll be eating later and the cakes baking for the family's afternoon tea. She climbs the stairs, intending to change into an older dress before beginning the messy task of washing, and emerges into the abandoned servants' corridor with her mind already on what she needs to do and how long it will take.

As she's opening her bedroom door, she feels an ominous tingle on her skin, and in the next instant, the hum of the ghost begins, a low, maddening vibration in her inner ear. She freezes, waiting for it either to intensify or stop, and then a voice behind her says "Miss Baxter?" and she gasps.

"Miss Baxter? Is something the matter?"

Phyllis turns round and finds the housemaid, Julia, standing there with a stack of clean, folded bedsheets in her arms and a worried look on her pointed little face.

"Do you hear that, Julia?"

"Hear what?" Julia is milk-white under her freckles, as if she thinks Miss Baxter may be off her head.

"Listen," Phyllis says, and Julia obeys, frowning.

"Oh," she says. "Is it a sort of humming sound? I do hear it a little." She clutches her sheets closer. "I hope nothing's gone wrong with the electricity. My mum knew someone whose whole house burnt down because the wires went on fire in the walls one night. It scares me stiff to think about it."

Phyllis wants to answer this, but surprise has made her weak and quivery inside, and she has to brace herself against the doorframe to keep from crumpling into a heap. Here at last is some proof, however small, that she is not imagining the ghost and everything to do with it. Julia can hear the sound, and that means at least that much of it is real.

"It's all right," she says. Her voice comes out thick and choked, and she clears her throat and tries again. "I expect it's there all the time, and we're only hearing it now because it's so quiet with everyone else downstairs. I wouldn't worry."

"If you're sure," Julia says hesitantly.

"I'm sure." Phyllis can only muster up half a smile, but it's enough to soothe Julia, who is very young and even more trusting. "You can get on with your work. I'm sorry if I frightened you."

The girl leaves, but Phyllis stands there a moment longer, thinking about the implications of this. She lets her head drop back and rest against the door, and as she does, the lights further along the corridor dim and flicker off and on, off and on.

"Not now," she says aloud, very softly, and the flickering stops.


	16. Chapter 16

The promised break in the snow arrives during the night between Saturday and Sunday, and by the time Phyllis is dressing Lady Grantham the following morning, a few glimmers of cold, pale sunlight are visible through the drawn-back bedroom curtains. While she is putting on the finishing touches, Cora asks if Phyllis would like to come with her to church in the car instead of walking, and after wavering for a moment—riding in the car means not walking with Mr Molesley, but also means not having to navigate icy paths on her still-weak ankle—Phyllis accepts. As a result, she has no time to talk before the service, and must wait to snatch a few moments with Molesley afterward, at a safe distance from the rest of the departing congregation.

"Are you sure you won't come along to Dad's with me?"

"I really shouldn't." Phyllis glances over her shoulder at Lady Grantham, a bright splash against the wintry landscape in her scarlet wool coat. She's chatting with Reverend Travis, but slowly, politely edging toward the car at the same time, indicating that they will be leaving soon. "Will he be willing to tell you if he knows anything, do you think?"

"Good Lord, yes. Dad loves to talk about old times. It'll be a challenge getting him to stop." Molesley looks around, then touches the sleeve of her coat, just enough for her to feel the brush of his fingers against her forearm. "Don't worry. I'll be back in a few hours to tell you whatever I've found out. Just try to keep busy until then."

"I will," Phyllis says. "And Mr Molesley, thank you again for doing this."

"It's nothing." He nods in Lady Grantham's direction. "I think her Ladyship's ready to leave. Go on, you'll be warmer in the car with her. I'll see you soon."

Bidding him goodbye, she crosses to the car and settles herself in the front passenger seat with her handbag on her lap. As the chauffeur closes the door, Lady Grantham says behind her, in a rather arch voice, "That looked like a very serious discussion, Baxter. Are you and Molesley plotting to overthrow the government?"

Phyllis is used to Cora's brand of playful teasing, but this makes her face flush hot despite the frosty air.

"We were talking about the weather, milady."

"Ah yes, the weather," Cora says. "Always a safe topic in mixed company. And what conclusions did you reach?"

"We're hoping things will clear up soon," Phyllis says. She's gazing through the window, where she can see Molesley and his father already looking small in the distance, and though she knows she was right to stay behind and not intrude on their time together, she can barely suppress an impulse to leap out of the car and run after them. With some effort, she composes herself and sits sedately, with the upright posture expected of a proper lady's maid, as the chauffeur starts the engine and they slide away past the crowd of people dressed in their Sunday best.

Back at the house, she helps Cora dress for lunch, goes downstairs to eat her own meal, which she barely tastes, and then thinking Molesley's suggestion of keeping busy was a good one, sets up her sewing machine to repair a fallen hem in a tea gown. The servants' hall is deserted, as it often is on Sunday afternoons, when most of the staff are either at the second church service or having a half-day out. Phyllis usually enjoys the peace and quiet, but at the moment it feels eerie and sad, as if she is the last person left on earth. Perhaps, she thinks, this is what it feels like to be the ghost, forever on its own while ordinary life is going on for other people somewhere else.

 _Best not to think of that_ , she tells herself. She finds the right shade of ivory thread in her workbox, threads the machine and sets to work, trying hard to stay focused and not let her mind wander to what Molesley and his father are discussing at this very moment. She has never been in the Molesley family home, but she can picture the scene anyway: the two men sitting near the fire in worn, comfortable chairs full of familiar squeaks and sags, eating sandwiches—not the dainty, crustless sort that Daisy makes by the plateful for upstairs, but thick-cut slabs of bread and ham and cheese—while the elder Mr Molesley talks and talks about days gone by. The imagined sound of his voice blends with the hum of the sewing machine to form a hypnotic drone, and she realises she's about to fall asleep right where she sits; her foot is nearly slipping off the treadle and the line of the hem has gone crooked.

Huffing out an exasperated breath, she pulls the material free and looks at all the bad stitches she'll have to unpick, then puts the gown to one side, folds her arms on the table beside the machine and lays her head on them, thinking she will just rest her eyes for a few seconds. She can hear plates rattling far away in the scullery as Mrs Patmore and Daisy finish the washing-up from lunch and start preparations for dinner, and then the splash of water in the sink becomes the sound of waves in the dream-lake, and she is in the rowboat, clinging to the box as the thunder crashes overhead. Electricity fizzes along every inch of her body, prickling at the roots of her hair and making her gasp for breath. Something about the sensation nags at her, like a memory just out of reach; she strains to catch at it, and then for the first time, realises that this is the same way she feels when she is near the ghost.

 _Is it here? Oh God, is it here?_

She looks around wildly, but before she can find it, a voice says "Miss Baxter!" and she jerks awake, knocking Lady Grantham's dress to the floor with the sweep of an arm.

"Oh!" She fumbles for the dress, but Anna gets there first, scoops it up before it can be damaged or soiled, and drapes it over the back of a chair as if to protect it from Phyllis's wild flailing.

"Are you all right?" Anna looks disapproving, but with a twist of real concern. "It isn't like you to fall asleep over your work."

"I'm fine." Phyllis presses a hand to her chest, trying to quell the racing of her heart. "I haven't been sleeping well lately, and I suppose I just...drifted off."

"You're lucky it was me who found you and not Mrs Hughes," Anna says. Her sweet face softens. "Have you tried a sleeping powder? There's a good one at the chemist, in a bottle with a red and white label. I used to buy it for Lady Mary when she was ill after her husband died."

"I hadn't thought of that," says Phyllis, truthfully. The idea of finally sleeping through a night is tempting, but it worries her to think that the ghost might come while she's in a drugged state and unable to defend herself. "I'll keep it in mind. You won't tell Mrs Hughes, will you?"

"Of course not," Anna says. "I think you'd better put this work away for a bit, though, until you're feeling better. And, I saw Mr Molesley coming in at the back door a few minutes ago. Mr Barrow snaffled him and swept him off to do some chore as soon as he'd taken off his coat, but he mentioned that he was looking for you. You might go and rescue him, if you can."

Phyllis takes Anna's suggestion and, after putting the dress away for safekeeping, goes hunting for Molesley, who this time is nowhere to be found. Thinking uncharitable thoughts about Mr Barrow, she busies herself elsewhere in the house until close to staff dinner, when she finally encounters him in the boot room, looking done in.

"Oh thank goodness." She comes in and pulls the door partially shut, wishing they were back in the room behind the barn where they can really be alone. "Anna told me Mr Barrow put you to work again. I told him yesterday to stop it. What did he make you do?"

"Never mind him," Molesley says. "I've got news for you from my dad. I thought he might take a while to get round to it—sometimes it seems as if every story reminds him of another story—but when I asked it just popped out, like I'd put a coin in a machine. He doesn't know of anyone who died by suspicious means in this house, but what he _does_ know is that there was a Crawley who disappeared about a hundred or so years ago. He couldn't remember the name, but he said it was a son of the earl that was, and he went off on a journey with one of his brothers and just...never came back."

"What about the brother? Did he come back?"

"Eventually," Molesley says. "Dad said the boy never really explained where his brother had gone, just said they'd got separated at some point, and he'd travelled about on his own for a bit before giving up and coming home. The family waited years for the brother who disappeared to turn up, or send a letter, or something, but he never did, and eventually the brother who returned inherited the title. He wouldn't have otherwise, Dad said, because he was the younger one."

Phyllis sits down on a stool, feeling vaguely horrified. "Does he think the brother who returned killed the brother who disappeared?"

Molesley shrugs. "He doesn't know—he wasn't born until long after all this happened—but he says his grandfather, my great-grandfather, thought so. Does that sound like it could be our ghost to you?"

"It could be," Phyllis says, "Only, I'm hardly an expert, but aren't ghosts meant to be tied to the place where they died? If something happened to the poor man on a journey, hundreds of miles away, why would his ghost be in the attic at Downton?"

"No idea," Molesley says, "but I think we've got to find out what his name was and see what the ghost makes of that. And this time I want to go up there with you. I'll hide if I have to, but I don't want you to go through it alone."

Phyllis still has no intention of allowing him to witness what the ghost does to her, but the very fact that he wants to be there is enough to warm her all the way through. She would like to touch him the way he touched her outside the church, just a light resting of her hand on his arm to show her appreciation, but while she is still wondering if it would seem too forward, the bell rings and summons them to the table for dinner.

 _That's all right_ , she thinks as they leave the room together. _It can wait._


	17. Chapter 17

Following Molesley's revelation, Phyllis is wild to get into the upstairs library and read the book Lady Grantham told her about. She asks Mr Carson when Lord Grantham is expected to return the following day and is told he is scheduled to arrive on the four o'clock train, which feels like a very long time to wait, especially as she is sure Lady Grantham won't be meeting him at the front door with a request to let one of the servants borrow a book. She entertains a brief fantasy of creeping into the library with a torch after the household is in bed, but there are so many hundreds and thousands of books on the shelves that she might be there all night without finding the right one. There is nothing for it but to be patient, she tells herself. If she could survive years in prison, she can endure a day or two of waiting now, no matter how it pains her.

When upstairs dinner is over, Thomas comes and sits near her in the servants' hall, which is a tactic she knows well—he won't actually apologise when he's behaved badly, but will lurk about and make remarks until she gives in and talks to him—but she is so nervous and on edge that she speaks more sharply than she intends to and he leaves in a huff. A few minutes after he departs, Molesley appears, having finished his work in the dining room, and takes the chair Thomas vacated.

"I saw Barrow on his way outside with a face like thunder," he says. "Didn't even stop to order me about. Imagine that!"

"It's my fault, I'm afraid," Phyllis says. "My bad temper's rubbed off on him."

"I can't imagine you ever being in a bad temper."

"I'm only human, Mr Molesely." Phyllis folds up the magazine she has been trying to read and lays it in her lap. "I'm truly honoured that you think so highly of me, but please don't set yourself up for disappointment. Aside from anything else I've done, I have my share of ordinary faults, and being cross sometimes is one of them."

"Well, Barrow's enough to make a saint blaspheme, so I won't hold that against you," Molesley says. He moves his chair a little closer to hers and lowers his voice. "How are you bearing up?"

"All right, I suppose." Phyllis stares down at the magazine's illustrated cover, which promises both the beginning of a new serial story and the six easy steps to hosting a successful garden party. She wishes they were at a garden party right now, drinking lemonade on a sunlit lawn, instead of here in this house full of secrets and surrounded by snow.

"I'm just anxious to get a look at that book, and..." She hesitates, then decides she may as well admit it. "I'm afraid to go to bed. I don't want to have the dream about the lake again. It seems to be coming on now almost as soon as I close my eyes."

"I wish I could be there with you when it happens," Molesley says, and immediately blushes crimson all the way to the roots of his thinning hair. "I mean, not there in your bed—I mean—"

Even in the midst of her upset, Phyllis has to smile at that. In fact, the idea of him being in her bed is not at all a displeasing one, at least in theory, but she is certainly not going to tell him so. Not only would it be wildly inappropriate, the embarrassment would probably do the poor man in. Phyllis is not one to place wagers, but if she were, she would stake her entire year's pay that Joseph Molesley has never so much as kissed a woman, never mind shared a bed with one.

"I know what you meant, Mr Molesley," she tells him. "And I appreciate the sentiment very much. I suppose I'll just have to cope with it the best way I can. Anna did mention something about a sleeping powder, but I'm not certain I'm quite that desperate yet. I don't really trust nostrums and such. So many of them are just quackery."

"Perhaps if you wait until very late to go up, you'll be so tired you won't dream at all," Molesley suggests. "I could sit up with you. We could play chess, or cards if you'd rather. It might take your mind off things in general."

"That would be lovely," Phyllis says gratefully.

They stay in the hall long after everyone else has gone, bent over the chessboard, until Mr Carson gives a pointed cough from the doorway and says that he doesn't know about the two of them, but he would like to at least renew his acquaintance with his pillow before the sun rises. By then Phyllis is struggling not to yawn and rub her eyes, and she parts from Molesley at the bottom of the women's staircase feeling hopeful that she may sleep in peace. There's a pleasant, heavy fatigue in all her limbs, and she barely notices the cold in her small room as she crawls under the blanket and quilt. Her last thought before drifting off is that she and Mr Molesley would need a much bigger bed than this one to share.

When the dream comes, it follows the now-familiar pattern at first: she is in the boat, protecting the box, trembling at the fury of the approaching storm. She looks around wildly, trying to find any means of escape, and for the first time, she realises that she is not alone. Someone else is in the boat with her; someone she cannot quite see, but of whom she is desperately afraid. She can feel the other person as a presence directly behind her, looming over her shoulder, but when she tries to turn, to face it, the boat lurches and she is in the water, deep and cold and deadly. There are fathoms and fathoms of it beneath her, dragging at her legs, pulling her down, and she can't swim properly because she has to keep hold of the box. A wave rises up and catches her full in the face, and she splutters, spitting out water that tastes of lake weed and minerals. It's in her eyes too, and as she blinks it away, she can see the side of the boat looming close to her, and above it, a blurred, pale face that is shouting something.

 _Give me your hand. You'll die if you don't_ , it calls, and Phyllis knows this is true. She is already dying, here in the water. She doesn't want to die, but she also doesn't trust the person behind the face, and so she kicks and struggles even harder, trying to keep afloat and stay away from the boat at the same time. Lightning sizzles across the sky at the rim of the valley, and in her head she counts _one-one thousand_ before thunder booms out over the lake, making the whole world shudder with it.

 _Don't be stupid. Give me the box and then take my hand,_ says the person to whom the face belongs, and she thinks that she will do it—that the box is precious, but not worth her life—but then she is awake, panting, curled round the pillow that belongs under her head as if trying to guard it.

Incredibly, given all the water in her dream, she's thirsty, but the pitcher on the washstand seems so far away it might as well be in London. Her dry throat is stronger than her fatigue, though, and she gets up and gulps down two glasses in a row before stumbling back to bed. Rolling onto her back, she gazes up at the window and sees silver moonlight; the cloud cover must finally have broken up for good. It gives the room a mystical, dreamlike feel, and that makes her think of her own dream and what this new variation of it might mean. On its surface, it seems to coincide with Molesley Senior's tale of the two brothers—the one who returned and the one who did not—but how can she be certain that her own mind isn't mixing elements from that story into the dream? She remembers _her_ Molesley, with his earnest, well-meaning face, saying _I wish I could be there with you when it happens,_ and thinks _Oh Mr Molesley, I wish you could too_.

Somehow the rest of the night passes, and she even manages to doze a little more, though not nearly enough to feel rested when morning comes. Molesley catches her gaze over the table and raises his eyebrows enquiringly, as if to ask how things went, and she shakes her head with a rueful expression before turning back to her breakfast. It's kedgeree this morning because Mrs Patmore made too much for upstairs, and she can't tell if it doesn't appeal because she's already feeling sick from lack of sleep, or because she isn't used to fish and spices at seven in the morning. Whatever the reason, she can only pick at it before going up to attend to Lady Grantham, who is bubbling with happiness over Lord Grantham's return later in the day.

"I know it's silly, Baxter, after we've been married so many years, but I miss him when he's away."

"I don't think it's silly," Phyllis says. She's on her knees, doing up Cora's stockings and suspenders. "I think it's nice that you're so fond of one another. Not everyone is lucky enough to be married to someone they like, never mind love."

"I suppose you're right." Cora smiles down at her. "Oh, and I haven't forgotten about your book. I'll ask tonight, and then you can ask Carson to show you where to find it in the library. I warn you though, it's going to make very dull bedtime reading. You'll be asleep in five minutes."

 _I hope not_ , Phyllis thinks, but to Cora she says "Thank you again, milady. I do appreciate it. There's so much history in this house, I can't help being interested."

"You and Molesley really are quite a pair," Cora says, still smiling. "Oh yes, the lace dress will be perfect for this morning. You always choose just the right thing, Baxter."

The day crawls past, and in the blue afternoon dusk, Phyllis goes down with the rest of the staff to form a welcoming party when Lord Grantham returns. Because of the snow, they're allowed to stand in the entrance hall rather than on the drive, but it's still terribly cold with the front doors open, and she and Anna are both shivering by the time the Earl has made his way from the car into the house. He smiles vaguely around at all of them without really seeing them, and then heads toward the study with Carson at his elbow, updating him on everything that has happened while he's been away. What would he think, Phyllis wonders, watching the back of his expensive black coat disappear behind the study door, if Carson casually added _and we're still investigating the ghost in the attic, milord_ , to the end of the list? She is so tired that this idea nearly makes her laugh, despite everything, and she has to turn it into a cough before Anna notices.

Even with Lady Grantham's assurances, she isn't expecting to hear anything about the book until tomorrow at the earliest, and it comes as a surprise when Mr Carson calls her into his pantry that evening and presents it to her with strict admonishments to read it only in a safe place, avoid leaving it open or face-down, and for goodness' sake not to touch it with dirty hands or lick her fingers before turning the pages. Too excited to be offended that he thinks her so uncultured, Phyllis thanks him, clasps the red-leather-bound volume to her chest and nearly runs to find Mr Molesley. At last, she thinks, perhaps they will find some real answers.


	18. Chapter 18

Phyllis forces herself to slow to a walk as she enters the servants' hall, where Molesley is sat at one end of the long table with Daisy, reading over something she's written out on lined paper. Daisy is nodding along with what he's saying, but the set of her jaw makes Phyllis think she may be working up a counter-argument. Before she can get round to making it, Molesley looks up and sees Phyllis, then notices the book in her arms and excuses himself to join her at the door.

"Is that it?"

Phyllis nods and clasps the book closer. "I didn't expect to have it in my hands so soon. I'm almost frightened to look at it."

"We'll do it together," Molesley says encouragingly. "Come on. There's no one in the corner near the fire; we can sit there."

They pull two of the straight-backed chairs into the corner, close enough to the fire for warmth, and once they're seated side by side, Phyllis takes a deep breath and opens the book, which has the sort of thin, gilt-edged pages that stick together and turn over in clumps rather than one by one. Mindful of Mr Carson's admonitions, she separates them carefully as she turns past the flyleaf and title page to the first chapter.

"Oh good heavens, it starts before the Conquest," she says. "I didn't think the earldom went back that far."

"It doesn't," Molesley says. "Whoever the old Earl hired to write this history was either awfully ambitious, or wanted to flatter the family, or both. Look ahead and try to find something from about a hundred years ago. That's the time Dad said."

Phyllis turns pages, frowning. "I don't think it's written that way. It jumps around. We'll be at it forever if we have to read the whole thing from cover to cover."

"We can split it up." Molesley takes the book from her, closes it, squints at the pages as if gauging their thickness, then spreads them open again at roughly the halfway point. "I'll start at the beginning and you start at the middle, and we'll get through twice as much that way. It might be a bit awkward, but we'll manage."

It takes some experimentation, but eventually they find a way to arrange themselves and hold the book so they both can see their assigned sections, occasionally brushing hands or bumping elbows as one of them readjusts a grip or fumbles with a page. Phyllis is expecting Molesley to be faster at reading than she is, but he tends to get bogged down in details while she skims through each section, and she has no trouble keeping up with her part of the work. She's gone through forty or so pages when a shadow appears, and she looks up to see that Thomas has come to lean against the fireplace mantel, an indecipherable expression on his face as he regards them and the book.

"What on earth are the two of you doing?"

Beside her, Molesley shifts in his seat, tensing as if ready to fight or flee. Phyllis, who knows from long experience that either of these responses will only make Thomas worse, marks her place in the book and looks up at him with the blandest, most neutral expression she can produce.

"We're reading, Mr Barrow."

"Well, I can see that much," Thomas says. "And what's so fascinating about this particular book that you've both got to read it at the same time?" He cocks his head, reading the title. " _History of the Crawley Family?_ Give us a look."

"Better not," Phyllis says as he reaches for it. "It's his Lordship's book from the library upstairs, and I had to get special permission to borrow it. Mr Carson will have your head as well as mine if it's damaged, and you don't want that, do you?"

Thomas's grimace is as sour as a squeezed lemon, but he folds his arms and affects an air of disinterest. "Never mind, then. It looks dull anyway. I'll leave you to it." He saunters off toward the kitchen, already lighting a cigarette in defiance of Mrs Patmore's rules about keeping _that nasty habit_ away from where she prepares the food, and Molesley lets out a held breath.

"I don't know how you can bear him. He's so horrible to everyone."

"Mr Barrow has hidden depths," Phyllis says. "Don't think about him right now, though. Focus on the reading." She opens her side of the book again and blinks as the letters blur and crawl on the page like an army of tiny black ants. Her eyes are always sore at the end of the day from hours of needlework, and peering at small print in low light is doing them no good. She allows herself a moment to imagine lying down with a cool compress over her face, and then reapplies herself to the book, which is in the midst of a long digression about heraldry. Perhaps Mr Molesley would like to trade her this bit for whatever he's reading, she thinks, skipping over paragraphs of azure and argent and fleur-de-lis until she lands on a more promising page.

"Oh," she says suddenly. "I think I might have found something."

Molesley starts and loses his place. "Have you? What is it?"

"It's about the second Earl and his family," Phyllis says, still reading. "He had three daughters, Lily, Beatrice and Harriet, and two sons, Edwin and Reginald. Edwin was born in 1795 and Reginald in 1799, so Edwin was the eldest son, but Reginald inherited the estate and became the third Earl."

"I've heard of him," Molesley says. "He'd be our Lord Grantham's great-great grandfather, the one who they say nearly went bankrupt, so he didn't do very well with the estate once he'd got it. Does it say why he inherited and not Edwin?"

Phyllis scans down the page, turns it over and reads the following one. "No, and it doesn't say what became of Edwin, either. He's mentioned as a child and a young man, but that's all. There's lots of Reginald, of course, and a few lines about the girls and who they married, but Edwin just disappears from the story as if he never existed."

She looks up and meets Molesley's eyes, which are nearly as dark as her own here in the shadows. "Do you think Edwin might be...him?"

"There's only one way to find out," Molesley says. "And remember, I'm going with you."

Phyllis glances around the room and finds it temporarily empty; even Daisy has finally packed it in for the night and taken her heap of books and papers up to the servants' quarters. She lowers her voice to answer anyway, knowing Thomas might reappear at any moment.

"I'm so grateful for the offer, Mr Molesley. It means everything to me that you're willing to help, but I'm not certain I want you to come for this. Not because I don't want you there, but because I'd be embarrassed. I don't know what it looks like from the outside when the ghost—when it—" She breaks off, not sure there's a socially acceptable description for what the ghost does. "But I know how it feels, and I don't think it's something I want you to see, or that you'd want to see."

Her hands are clasped on top of the book in her lap, and with a sudden spasm of boldness, Molesley folds his own hands over them. His fingers are long and warm and surprisingly smooth, thanks to the white gloves he wears every day, and he squeezes just hard enough to be firm without hurting.

"If you really don't want me to, Miss Baxter, then I won't. I'd never want to make you unhappy. Only you should know that there's nothing a ghost can do—that anyone can do—to change my feelings about you."

"Oh." Her voice comes out choked, and she swallows and tries again. "And what...what are those feelings, exactly?"

"Well, I—"

Just then there's a sharp bang in the kitchen as the door slams, and Molesley whisks his hands away from hers and picks up the book, opening it at random and holding it up as if he's showing her something interesting he's found. They are in this position when Thomas comes back into the hall in a whirl of outdoor cold, with his cheeks red and snow melting off his shoes.

"Still?" He arches an eyebrow at them.

"I was just going up," Phyllis says. "We'll finish this tomorrow night, won't we, Mr Molesley?"

Molesley looks as if he'd like to launch Thomas from the top of the roof, but he nods. "Yes, of course. I'll walk with you as far as the staircase."

Phyllis gathers up the book, dutifully smoothing out the pages and making certain the corners of the cover haven't bent, and she and Molesley cross the room together with Thomas's gaze resting like a weight on their backs. Their unfinished conversation hangs in the air between them, but she feels awkward about restarting it and Molesley seems to feel the same, so they go up the first set of stairs in silence except for the thump of their feet on the worn wooden treads. At the next staircase, they pause and Phyllis looks up at him, taking in the desperate worry on his face and marvelling a little at the fact that it is meant for her.

"Are you certain you want to? Really, truly certain?"

"I wouldn't have offered if I weren't," Molesley says.

"All right." She's nearly whispering, afraid someone may be at the top of the stairs to overhear. "You can come, only you'll have to be very careful not to be seen by anyone, and that means both Mrs Hughes and the ghost. I'll unlock the connecting door before I go up to the attic, and then when you come through, lock it behind you so no one on this side will notice."

Molesley nods. "I'll slip up after you and find a place where it won't see me. There's enough rubbish up there to hide an army behind."

"Good. And remember, no matter what happens, stay hidden until it goes again. It may hurt me, but it won't kill me. That much I know." She looks at her watch. "It's after eleven now. I'll go up at two; everyone should be asleep by then, and we'll still have a few hours before people start waking up for the day."

"I'll be there." He looks down at the toes of his shoes, scuffed and needing a polish after the day's work. "I didn't think I'd be frightened, but I am, a bit. I'm ashamed to say it when you're so brave."

"Don't be." Phyllis lays her hand on his arm. "It's only easier for me because I've already seen it and you haven't. And it is frightening, but I don't think it means to be. It's forgotten how to be a person, that's all. It's confused, and sad, and it doesn't understand anything but what it wants."

"Well, we're about to give it that."

"I hope so," Phyllis says, and on that note they temporarily part ways.

* * *

 _There's still quite a bit of the story left to go, and more than one mystery to be resolved. I'm aiming to update twice a week at minimum, so things should keep speeding along to the conclusion. Thanks to everyone who's been hanging in there with me so far; I really appreciate it! - A_


	19. Chapter 19

Phyllis spends the hours between eleven and two lying fully dressed on her bed, rigid with anticipation and nerves. Her mind is occupied not only by the prospect of finally making good on her promise to the ghost, but also by the way Mr Molesley touched her and spoke to her. She has never allowed herself to imagine that he sees her as anything more than a dear friend, which is a great deal more than she deserves in light of her past, but perhaps she has been wrong. Not that this is any time to be worrying about such nonsense, with the task that lies ahead of them both.

At five minutes of two, she gets up, opens her door a crack, and peers through it to see if anyone is about. All is empty, dim and quiet, so she slips out and walks in silent stocking feet to the door that connects the two halves of the corridor. As quickly as she can, she lifts the key from its hook and undoes the lock, then replaces the key for Molesley to use and heads for the door to the attic stairs.

The knob turns smoothly in her hand, and she's through, pulling the door almost shut as she goes. Her breathing sounds unnaturally loud in the dark, closed space, fast and ragged as if she's been running, and she can hear the pulse of her own blood like a dull throb in her ears. She counts the beats and waits, and when she feels calmer, turns and looks up the stairs to the upper door. Can it really have been only a month ago, she wonders, that she first encountered the ghost on the other side? It feels like her entire life.

"Time to put an end to it," she says aloud, to herself, and starts to climb.

The attic is as dark and gloomy as ever, but this time Phyllis has given some thought to the sorts of things that happen when the ghost is near, and has come prepared to bypass the lights altogether. From the pocket of her dress, she takes a battery-powered torch that she borrowed from Daisy, who likes modern gadgets and often spends her money on them when she isn't buying books, and switches it on, casting a circle of white light on the floor. She isn't completely certain that the torch will stand up against the ghost's electrical aura, but it's better than nothing, and its heavy, bullet-shaped copper casing feels solid and reassuring in her hand.

Thus armed, she takes a few steps deeper into the stacks of Crawley artifacts like an explorer in some wild and untamed territory.

"Are you here?" She pitches her voice low, even though she knows from bitter experience that no one can hear her below. "I've come to talk. I have something to tell you, and a question to ask."

Silence.

"Please. I need to see you. I think I may have found your name, your true name." She readjusts her grip on the torch, keeping it aimed at the floor so as not so frighten the ghost away—a rich irony, considering how many times it has frightened her. Certainly if anyone had told her before this that she would be begging it to appear, she wouldn't have believed them, and yet here she is.

Somewhere behind her, she hears the barely audible creak and click that is Molesley coming in through the door, shutting it and looking for a hiding place. She thinks of how he will look at her if the ghost is nowhere to be seen—how he will think she is mad or a liar after all—and that makes her desperate.

"If you don't show yourself now, I will never tell you what I've found out," she says. "I'll go to my own grave without telling, and you may have to wait another hundred years or more to find someone else who will try to help you. Is that what you want?"

There is a long pause, and then, faintly, she hears the hum of the ghost begin. It builds and builds until her eardrums are vibrating with it, until her skin is hot and tingling with its approach, and then for the first time, she sees it manifest. It's not the instant now-you-see-it, now-you-don't way in which it vanishes, but a slow gathering of energy, a glowing nucleus in the air that grows until it's the size of a cricket ball, then a football, then an irregularly shaped thing that elongates and shifts until it has the rough human form she knows from previous visits.

"Thank you," she says, and the ghost makes a gesture that could mean _You are welcome_. Vaguely, she wonders what Molesley is making of this, and hopes he is able to keep quiet and hidden. She thinks the ghost would simply disappear if it saw him, but there is no way to be sure until it happens.

She switches the torch off—the ghost's glow is enough to light the room for now—and sets it carefully down a few feet behind her, where she hopes it will be safe.

"I'm ready," she says. "But remember what happened before. I'm alive and I can feel pain, so make yourself as small as you can, and don't do anything suddenly. I can't bear too much of you."

The ghost needs no further prompting. It moves toward her, into her, and she sucks in a hiss of breath: in her head, she knows that this hurts, but each time she forgets exactly how painful it is until it happens again, which is something that other women have told her about childbirth. At least in that case, she thinks, there is a reward at the end that is meant to make the pain worthwhile. Here there is only suffering.

 _Be calm_ , the ghost says to her. _Stop fighting._

"I'm not," she says through clenched teeth. "I can't fight if I can't move—ah, that burns!"

 _I am being careful_ , the ghost says fretfully. _You are damaged from the other times. Your body needs to recover before this happens again._

"If I have what I think I have, it may never need to happen again," Phyllis says. She feels a tear slip from one eye and wishes she could move her arm to wipe it away. "Shall I tell you?"

 _Yes. Tell me._

"All right." She tries to breathe in more deeply and thinks that the ghost is right; in addition to the usual pain, she can feel something dull and sore in her chest, as if its presence is pressing on a deep, half-healed bruise. "A long time ago, there was a boy named Edwin Crawley who lived in this house with his brother and sisters. When he was a young man, he and his brother went on a journey together, and he never came home again. His family waited for him, but in the end his brother was the one who inherited the house and the lands and the title, and the young man was almost forgotten. I think you are Edwin Crawley, and..."

She wonders whether to say the rest, and then decides that now is the time to lay everything bare. "I think your brother Reginald may have caused your death, or at least lied about what happened to you."

 _Reginald?_ the ghost says.

"Yes."

 _Reginald. Reggie._ The ghost is stirring, getting agitated, and Phyllis lets out a little cry as it pushes on that sore place inside her. _Reggie was in the boat. Reggie wanted the box._

"The box in my dream," Phyllis says. "The green and silver one. What was in it?"

 _Something precious_ , the ghost says. _We found it, Reggie and I. We said we would share it, but Reggie wanted it all for himself. He was always greedy. We went in the boat..._

"There was a storm." She can smell the storm-scent all around them, replacing the stuffy attic air with its sharp chemical essence. "Did he push you into the water, Edwin?"

 _Perhaps. Or perhaps I fell. It is hard to remember. There was water and there was fire._

"I've seen the water," Phyllis says, "and the box—"

 _Where is the box?_

"In the dream?"

 _Not in the dream. Now, in this world. Where is the box?_

"I don't know," Phyllis says. "I've never seen it."

 _You must find it._

"What are you saying? How can I find the box? It could be anywhere—your brother might have sold it—it might have fallen to the bottom of the lake."

 _You must find it._

"That wasn't the deal we made," Phyllis says, and then whimpers as the ghost shifts and moves, straining against the constraints of her body. "I promised to help you find your name, and I have done. I'm finished. I can't do any more."

 _Find the box and I will have peace_ , the ghost says, and it expands itself so abruptly that she screams, a choked, strangled noise that seems to upset the ghost even more. It pulls away, so she can see its glowing aura extending for a hand's breath all around her, and she squeezes her eyes shut because the brightness burns, like staring into the sun on a hot summer's day. She hears a crash somewhere to her right, and then a familiar voice is shouting _get away_ and _leave her alone_ , and the ghost all but explodes the rest of the way out of her body, vanishing in midair.

"Phyllis. Oh, good God. Phyllis!"

"I'm all right," she says thickly. "I'm—"

Her knees buckle, but before she can fall, arms catch her and lower her to the floor, and even through the haze of pain and confusion, she knows who those arms belong to. They make her feel safe enough to let herself drift gently away for a while.


	20. Chapter 20

It feels like a long time, but really is only two or three minutes before she comes back to full awareness. In that span, Mr Molesley has found the torch, switched it on and is kneeling beside her, looking haggard and terrified. From the way she is laid out on the floor with her dress smoothed down over her legs, she can see he's tried to preserve her dignity even in unconsciousness, a gesture she finds both touching and very like him.

"Are you all right, Miss Baxter?" Molesley has apparently recovered himself enough to revert to the proper form of address, though by now it seems a rather pointless formality. He's hanging over her like an anxious mother with an ill child, and Phyllis realises she feels too vulnerable in this position and levers herself up to sit at a right angle to him. In the narrow beam of artificial light from the torch, she can see a cloud of dust motes glimmering, as if they are talking in a room lit by summer afternoon sunlight instead of a vast, shadowy attic. The incongruity of it is eerie and beautiful at the same time.

"I will be," she assures him. "It's always like this. I feel faint afterward, but it passes."

"I thought you were going to fall."

"I was." Phyllis draws her knees up to her chest and hugs them. She would like to lay her head down on them and close her eyes again, but doesn't want to alarm him even more than he already is. "Thank you for catching me."

"Of course," Molesley says. He pauses, looking at her with a sort of mingled horror and respect. "That was awful. I understand now why you worried about letting me watch. I've never seen anything like it."

"What was it like?"

"Well, I felt the ghost coming before I saw it—tingling and buzzing, like something electrical—and when it appeared I wanted to run and pull you away from it, but I remembered what you'd said about keeping hidden, so I stayed where I was and watched." Molesley shudders, remembering. "It floated forward, and when it touched you, there was a bright line of light at the edge where the two of you met. The further it overlapped with you, the brighter and hotter the light got, until it looked as if you were about to burst into flames. It was like seeing an angel—not a marble statue with a white robe and wings, but one of the seraphim in the Bible. A terrible angel burning with divine fire."

Phyllis lets out a small, rueful laugh. "I'm hardly an angel, and I don't know what the ghost is, but it isn't divine. It hurts too much for that."

"I know," Molesley says. "I could see that it did, and hear it in your voice as well. It wasn't easy, I can tell you, knowing it was hurting you and not being able to do anything about it."

"Could you hear what it was saying to me?"

"No, only what you were saying to it, although that was enough for me to guess about the other half of the conversation. So we were right, then, were we? It is Edwin Crawley?"

"It says it is." She reconsiders briefly. "Well—now that I think of it, it never actually said so, but it remembered its brother's name. It said that they found the green box together and agreed to share what was in it, but Reginald wanted everything for himself because he was greedy. I'm only guessing, but it sounds as if they quarreled over it, and somehow Edwin was killed in the process."

"And now it wants you to find the box for it again?"

"Yes," Phyllis says, "but I don't see how I possibly can. It might be anywhere, mightn't it? Everything happened so long ago, and we don't know where the valley and the lake are, or whether Reginald brought the box home with him, or anything at all really."

"Well," says Molesley, "suppose you just don't? Look for the box, I mean. You've kept your promise to help it find its name. You don't owe it anything else."

"The last time it thought I was taking too long to help it, it visited me in my room at night," Phyllis says. The memory fills her with despair. "I can't live always thinking it might appear at any moment, and I won't leave Downton to get away from it. I'll never find another position like this one, not with my history." Now she does lean forward and bury her face against her bent knees, and Molesley lays the torch down and puts a tentative hand on her back, between her shoulder blades.

"Well, I'll still help you, of course. What can we do? Can you talk to it and find out more? I don't like to suggest it, now I've seen how hard it is on you, but..."

"I can't just now," Phyllis says, muffled in the folds of her skirt. "It said I had been damaged by the other times it merged with me, and I should heal before we spoke again or it would really hurt me. I'm sure it was telling the truth. I could feel the damage it meant, like a bruised place inside."

"Do you need Dr Clarkson? I don't know how we'd explain it, but if we could get him to take films..."

"No, no, I'm fine." She sits up again to show him, straightening her spine and letting his comforting hand slip away. "I need to rest, that's all. And we've got to get back to our own rooms soon, or else someone will catch us, and then we'll really be in for it. I doubt either Mrs Hughes or Mr Carson would approve of us being alone together in the attic in the middle of the night."

"It wouldn't be much of a place for a scandalous assignation, would it?" Molesley says. He casts a sceptical eye over the sheeted furniture and heaps of detritus, as if clearly finding them wanting. "I don't think so, at any rate."

"Needs must when the devil drives, Mr Molesley," Phyllis says dryly, thinking of the various cramped and unromantic places she and Coyle met around their former employer's house. "Will you help me up, please?"

Molesley scrambles up, puts out his hands for her and pulls her easily to her feet, then bends to collect the torch from the floor. Its beam dims a bit as he gives it to her, and Phyllis feels a pang of dread before realising that the batteries are probably going. As soon as they reach the stairwell between the two doors, she switches it off and puts it back in her pocket to return to Daisy in the morning. She will offer to buy a new set of batteries for it as well, she thinks; they aren't cheap, and she earns a great deal more than Daisy does.

"I'll look," she says softly to Molesley, who is just opening the door at the foot of the stairs. Applying one eye to the crack, she sees the back of Julia's pink dressing gown disappearing into the bathroom and draws away, stifling a gasp.

"What is it?"

She shakes her head and puts her fingers over her own lips to indicate quiet, and Molesley hushes at once. Gently, she pulls the door shut again, and they wait together in the dark until she hears the unmistakable groan and rattle of the pipes in the bathroom, followed by Julia's slippers shuffling back to her own room. When she checks again, the corridor is empty.

"It's safe now," she tells him. "You go first, and I'll come and lock the connecting door behind you after. We can talk tomorrow about what to do next."

"Sleep well, Miss Baxter," he says, almost too low to hear.

"Sleep well, Mr Molesley," she says, and feeling reckless with exhaustion and relief and gratitude, stretches up on tiptoe and brushes a feather-light kiss against his cheek. "And thank you."


	21. Chapter 21

It doesn't occur to Phyllis until later, after she is safely back in her bed, that the ghost may appear in her room again and try to exact some sort of revenge for Mr Molesley's presence in the attic. The idea is a frightening one, and on another night it might have kept her awake, but she is so weary that she can't find it in herself to care. _Let it come if it wants to_ , she thinks, drifting on the surface of sleep, _let it come_ —and then she is sucked down into an unconsciousness so black and heavy that not even the dream of the box can penetrate it. In that void there is no sense of time passing, and so it seems only an instant goes by before she hears someone calling her name.

"Miss Baxter." It's Mrs Hughes, sounding both far away and very close at the same time, like a voice in a telephone receiver pressed to the ear. "Miss Baxter, wake up."

Phyllis makes a thick, incoherent sound and tries to open her eyes, but they're sticky and gritty, as if her eyelids have been pasted together. At last she manages it and blinks at Mrs Hughes' familiar face in light that is too bright and at the wrong angle for six o'clock in the morning. The housekeeper has drawn the straight chair up to her bedside and is sitting bolt upright in it, watching her with an expression that Phyllis is too groggy to decode.

"Do you know what time it is, Miss Baxter?"

"No." Phyllis clutches the quilt up around her neck, suddenly terrified. She truly doesn't know, but the very fact that Mrs Hughes is in her room and asking this question tells her that whatever the time is, it is the wrong one. "Is it—is it late?"

"It is indeed," Mrs Hughes says. "It's half past nine, Miss Baxter."

"Oh," Phyllis says faintly. In addition to the sick, spinning sensation of being woken too abruptly, she begins to feel the creeping shame of a child who has arrived at school tardy and unprepared. "I didn't mean to—I'll go up to her Ladyship right now—"

"Don't worry about her Ladyship. Anna's looking after her." Mrs Hughes' brow is deeply furrowed; the vertical lines round her mouth more pronounced than usual, and for the first time Phyllis realises that she is not angry, but concerned. "You've given us a bit of a fright this morning. Daisy couldn't rouse you no matter how hard she knocked, so she came and fetched me to unlock your door because she thought you might be ill, and then the both of us together tried and failed to wake you. I would have thought you were the worse for drink, but you don't smell of it, and anyhow you're not one to overindulge in that way."

"No, no, I wouldn't..."

"I know, Miss Baxter. Don't upset yourself." Mrs Hughes makes a small, calming gesture. "I was afraid it might be something to do with what happened a few weeks ago, when you fell on the stairs, but you seemed to be breathing well enough, so we left you to rest and got on with the morning business. I'm afraid you'll have to see Dr Clarkson this time whether you like it or not, though. I sent for him after breakfast was over, and he should be here any minute."

"Yes, of course." Phyllis readjusts her grip on the quilt; it's poor protection, but it's all she has at the moment. "I am so terribly sorry about this. I truly didn't mean to. I just—I've had trouble sleeping, these last few weeks, and it must have caught up with me. I mentioned it to Anna recently; she'll tell you..."

"She already has," Mrs Hughes says. "I expect Dr Clarkson will have something to help with that, but we'll see what he thinks after he has a look at you. Ah— that'll be him now," she says, as Julia raps at the half-open door and then pushes it open for the doctor to enter, black bag in hand, with his silver hair neatly combed and his bow tie in place. He brings with him a sharp smell of disinfectant that makes Phyllis shudder, remembering those invasive prison exams, but Mrs Hughes is still in the room, and she knows that Mrs Hughes will not allow anything unnecessary or improper to be done to her. At any rate, it seems all Dr Clarkson is interested in doing is shining a light in her eyes and listening to her chest, which he does swiftly and efficiently.

"There's a bit of tightness around the lungs," he says at last, folding up his stethoscope and packing it away, "but nothing too serious, and I don't see any signs of a lingering head injury. I'd say it's simple exhaustion. You said you haven't been sleeping well?"

"Not for a while now," Phyllis admits. "Someone mentioned a sleeping powder..."

"Yes, I think that's a good idea." He scrawls something on a slip of paper, hands it to Mrs Hughes. "You'll need to be sparing with it—it's easy to take too much—but as long as you're careful you'll be all right."

"Will I be able to wake up when I need to?" Phyllis asks, thinking of the ghost and the possibility that it may visit her in the night. For Mrs Hughes' sake, she adds, "I wouldn't want to oversleep and be late for my work again, you see."

"Yes, if you only take the recommended amount," Dr Clarkson says. He's halfway to the door, already finished with this call on someone whom he clearly thinks is a weak and possibly hysterical woman. Mrs Hughes follows him out into the corridor, where Phyllis can hear her saying in a low voice that Lady Grantham has asked to have the bill sent to her. It seems someone—Anna? Mrs Hughes herself?—has apprised her Ladyship of the situation. Phyllis rather wishes they hadn't, but then she supposes her Ladyship must have wanted an explanation for why Anna was performing Phyllis's duties for her. Cora is nearly always kind and understanding, but she also likes to know what's going on, right down to the content of Phyllis's conversations with Mr Molesley.

Thinking of Molesley makes her wonder how he is handling her disappearance; he will have missed her at breakfast, and after their sojourn in the attic, he is probably imagining all sorts of dreadful things that may have happened. She must get dressed; go to her Ladyship to apologise in person for her absence; then find an excuse to get downstairs and see him. Now that she is fully awake, she feels strong enough to do all those things, as if the unnaturally deep sleep were the restorative she needed. She gets out of bed, shivering in the chilly air, and is looking through her small selection of black dresses for a clean one when Mrs Hughes comes back in and catches her.

"What on earth are you doing, Miss Baxter?"

Phyllis turns round with a dress draped over her arm. "I thought I would go down and relieve Anna. There's no need for her to be run off her feet all day when Dr Clarkson says I'm quite all right."

"He didn't exactly say you were quite all right," Mrs Hughes points out. "He said you were exhausted."

"Yes, well, I've had my sleep," Phyllis says. "More than I was entitled to, in fact, so now I really ought to get to work."

"Heaven knows I believe everyone should pull their own weight, Miss Baxter, but if you're ill then there's no point making yourself worse." Mrs Hughes turns away and automatically begins making Phyllis's bed while she speaks, with the crisp, tight corners all the housemaids are taught to do. "You've not been yourself this past month; don't think I haven't noticed. If something's the matter, for goodness' sake, tell me what it is before her Ladyship notices as well, or it'll be me who has to answer to her. It's not as if you're only a scullery maid, after all."

Phyllis wants to hug the dress against herself for comfort, but resists the urge, knowing it will leave wrinkles in the fabric that she will have to press out. "Thank you, but like I said, it's only that I haven't been sleeping well. Perhaps it's just part of getting older."

"Wait until you're my age before you talk about getting older, Miss Baxter," Mrs Hughes says dryly. "All right, if you insist, go on and take over from Anna. I know her Ladyship would rather have you; not that Anna doesn't do a beautiful job, but you know the way her Ladyship likes things to be done. I'll send Mr Molesley off to collect this sleeping powder for you, and tonight I expect you to take it and get as much rest as you can. I don't like seeing you look so pale and peaky."

"Yes, Mrs Hughes." Phyllis hesitates. "Perhaps I might give the name of the powder to Mr Molesley myself? I meant to talk to him about something else anyway."

"Well, of course, if you like." Mrs Hughes plucks the slip of paper from her apron pocket and lays it on the freshly spread quilt. "I'll leave you to dress, then."

She closes the door behind her as she goes, and Phyllis sits down on the edge of the bed with the dress in her lap. She has been too consumed with horror and embarrassment at her own conduct to really think deeply about the ghost's demand, but now that she is alone, it all comes back to her. _Find the box and I will have peace_ , the ghost had said, but what about her? Is she never to have any peace of her own? How long must she keep repaying the universe for her crimes? Anger does not come easily to her, but now she can feel a hot flicker of it inside herself, a frustrated resentment that wants to kick and scream and cry out _it isn't fair_.

It's a selfish and futile way to think, but Phyllis allows herself to indulge in it while she washes, dresses, pins up her hair, tucks Dr Clarkson's paper into her own pocket for safekeeping, and makes her penitent visit to Lady Grantham, who like Mrs Hughes, is more surprised and worried than angry about the events of the morning. She asks a few pointed questions and then, satisfied, settles down to talk about her current favourite topic of Christmas, and in particular what presents George and Sybbie should receive this year. This is a line of conversation that Phyllis normally enjoys, as she is fond of the children and also rather fascinated by their playroom full of toys, which is a wonderland compared to the few, treasured playthings she and her sister once shared. At the moment, though, she is finding it hard to concentrate, and it's a relief when Cora rises and says she must speak to Mrs Patmore about the menu for a dinner she is hosting next week. Phyllis follows her downstairs at a deferential distance and as soon as she is able, slopes off and goes looking for Molesley. As it turns out, Molesley has also been looking for her, and it's he who spots her first.

"Miss Baxter!" He's leaning out of the storeroom where the table linens for upstairs are kept, and she feels a great, warm rush of relief at the sight of him, not only for his own sake, but because it's so good to be with someone who knows the truth. A memory of the impulsive kiss she bestowed on him last night flutters across her mind—the slightly scratchy feel of his cheek under her lips, the sharp, surprised breath he drew—and she pushes it away firmly.

"Ask me to help you with something," she says in a low voice. "In case someone's watching."

"What? Oh. Will you come here for a moment and help me?"

"Yes, of course." She slides in past him, and he closes the door.

"What happened? I've been going mad worrying. Daisy said she thought you were ill, but I couldn't get away, and no one downstairs really knew anything."

"I'm not," Phyllis says. "I—well, I suppose I just overslept, but Mrs Hughes said she couldn't wake me, and I don't remember her trying. I must have been nearly comatose."

"Is it something to do with the ghost?"

She shakes her head. "I think it was lots of late nights catching up with me all at once, and Dr Clarkson seemed to think so too. He looked me over and pronounced me all right, if that helps put your mind at ease. Oh—" She puts her hand into her pocket, finds the paper and holds it out to him. "Mrs Hughes says please will you go and get this at the chemist when you have time. It's Veronal, the sleeping powder. I haven't wanted to try it, but now I suppose I'll have to."

"Yes, of course." Molesley folds the paper into a tiny square and hides it away in some interior part of his livery. "I'll go soon as I've finished this. There's plenty of time before lunch."

"Let me help you, then. It'll go faster. I did say I would, just now, and this way it won't be a lie."

"Doesn't her Ladyship need you?"

"She's in with Mrs Patmore, discussing whether to serve mushroom consommé or cream of celery as the soup at her dinner party," Phyllis says. "They'll be an hour at least. Are you folding those tablecloths?"

Molesley nods and plucks the topmost cloth from the pile, and they shake it out between them and take opposing sides.

"I was thinking last night after I went to bed," he says.

"Well, there was lots to think about, wasn't there?" Phyllis walks her end of the cloth toward him and joins up her corners with his, bringing her close enough to see a faint flush on his cheeks. Belatedly, she realises that he must think she is referring to her kiss—or is he the one who meant to refer to it? She backs up swiftly and takes the newly formed short end of the cloth as he turns it around; they join up the corners again, and then he gives it a final fold and slots the neat white square into its place on the shelf.

"About the box," Molesley clarifies. "The ghost didn't say what was in it, did he?"

"He didn't know," Phyllis says. "He only said it was something precious. It might have been gold or jewels or the deed to property, or even some sort of relic. Although he did say that he and Reginald meant to divide it, so it must have been something that _could_ be divided, if you see what I mean. Do you suppose there's a way to find out?"

"I'm not sure," Molesley says, as they meet up again to bring the corners of a new cloth together. "I don't suppose we'll find the answer in the book, will we?"

"Well, we might," Phyllis says thoughtfully. "We never read any more after Mr Barrow came in." She flips her side of the cloth up and matches it to his, and a moment later it joins its mate on the shelf. "It's safe in my room; I can look tonight before I take the sleeping powder."

"About that," Molesley says. "I was also wondering...when you have the dream, can you do anything to control what happens in it? I mean, can you decide to look behind you and see who the other person in the boat is, or to open the box and find out what's inside? Or do you even know you're dreaming while it's happening?"

Phyllis thinks about that as he finishes folding the third cloth and laying it away.

"It's hard to say," she says at last. "It feels real, but at the same time I know it's a dream. And I don't think I can control it, but I've never really tried to, either. I'm always too frightened. The thunder and lightning are right above my head, and I don't want to fall into the water because I can't swim."

"Can't you really though?"

"Well, _I_ can," Phyllis says, "at least a little. In the dream I can't at all, though, and I'm terribly afraid of the water, and of drowning." They've developed a practised rhythm of folding now; the pile of loose tablecloths is dwindling fast as the stack on the shelf grows. "But I suppose in the dream I'm not really myself, am I? I'm Edwin, and those are Edwin's memories, and every time it happens, he remembers a bit more. Only why can't he remember on his own? Why does he need me?"

"If we knew that, we could both leave service and go into business as spiritualists," Molesley says with a wry grin. Taking the last cloth, he puts it on top of the one before it, and then squares the whole stack with the edge of the shelf. "Well, there's that finished. I'll go and see about your powder now. Who knows? Perhaps if you sleep well tonight, all will be revealed in the next dream."

"Or I might not have the dream at all," Phyllis says. "I didn't last night when I was dead to the world." She twists her hands together and looks down at them to avoid meeting his eyes. "I wish I never had to have it again."

Molesley reaches past her, opens the storeroom door, stands aside to let her out first and then steps through himself.

"I'd have it for you if I could, Miss Baxter," he says. "You do know that, don't you?"

"I—oh, there's her Ladyship."

Down the corridor, Lady Grantham is emerging from the kitchen with a red-faced Mrs Patmore right on her heels, and Phyllis gives Molesley an apologetic look. "I have to run. She'll be wanting me to dress her for lunch. I'll see you when you come back."

There's disappointment written large across his face, and she wonders what he was hoping for. Surely it wasn't a repeat of last night? It had really seemed to embarrass him more than anything, and she rather regrets doing it, even though the memory is a pleasant one, at least for her.

"Mind how you go," she adds, and is rewarded with the hint of a smile before she turns and hurries to catch up with her Ladyship in the hall.


	22. Chapter 22

After the upheaval of the morning, the rest of the day passes quietly, which is a relief. Lady Grantham goes to bed with a headache after family tea, freeing Phyllis from most of her duties: she fetches ice for the pain, sits by the bedside and reads aloud for a while at her Ladyship's request, and then is needed only to carry up a dinner tray and make certain everything is settled for the night.

With those tasks completed, she spends the rest of the evening in the servants' hall, doing some mending for Anna as a thank-you for her help earlier, and wishing that Molesley were here instead of serving upstairs. He has given her the small glass bottle of sleeping powder—the red-and-white label just as Anna said it would be—and she can feel its weight in her pocket, reminding her that she must soon submit to its effects. She considers just measuring out the prescribed amount and flushing or hiding it, the way women in prison did with medicines they didn't want to take, but tells herself not to be silly. If even Lady Mary used it, surely it can only do her good, can't it?

Eventually Molesley returns from the dining room looking harassed, with his slicked-down hair beginning to stick up at the back. Seeing that Mr Carson isn't around to disapprove, he drops into the chair beside her and lets himself slump a little.

"It was a nightmare up there," he says in response to her querying look. "Without her Ladyship there to smooth things over, they go after each other like wild animals sometimes. The Dowager Countess is a grand lady, but she's not exactly one to pour oil on troubled waters." He straightens up properly again and leans toward her. "Are you going up to bed soon?"

It's an innocent inquiry, but it makes her eyes fill up, and Molesley looks stricken.

"No, don't—" He glances around, confirms they're alone, and touches her lightly on the arm. "What is it? Are you still feeling nervous about taking the powder?"

Phyllis pushes away the dress she's been repairing, not wanting to spot the silk if a tear should fall by accident. "I'm being ridiculous, I know, I just don't like not knowing what's going to happen, or thinking I might be trapped in the dream and not able to wake up." She tips her head back and gazes up at the ceiling, blinking hard, then draws a finger in a precise line underneath each eye to make sure nothing has escaped. "There's no point crying over it. My mother always said what can't be cured must be endured."

"It seems awfully hard," Molesley says. "If I could come and stay with you somehow..."

"What?" Phyllis is shocked, not so much at the idea itself, but at hearing it come from the mouth of shy, self-deprecating, easily embarrassed Joseph Molesley, who only twelve hours ago was blushing at the memory of a kiss on the cheek. "You can't be serious, Mr Molesley. It was enough of a risk going up to the attic together last night. We'd both be dismissed at once if someone caught you in my bedroom."

"They'd have to catch me first," Molesley says stubbornly. "People have managed it before. I mean, for different reasons, but I've known those who got away with it."

"Yes, and also those who were found out and lost their positions," Phyllis says. "I'm grateful for the offer, and—" She pauses here, wondering if she is about to say too much. "And I would be glad to have you with me, but it's too dangerous. Mrs Hughes unlocked my door only this morning when she thought I was ill; what if she does it again to check I'm sleeping? I won't let you take the chance."

Molesley sighs. "I suppose you're right. It was only a thought."

"It was a kind one," Phyllis says. Picking up the dress again, she examines her work, takes a finishing stitch, and snips the thread closely before folding the dress and laying it back in Anna's mending basket. "I may as well go up now. Putting it off won't make it any easier." Her hands are busy as she speaks, tidying away needles and spools and sweeping up the clipped ends of thread. She closes her workbox and stands up before she can change her mind, and Molesley stands up too and walks toward the stairs with her.

"It's going to be all right, Miss Baxter," he says when they get there. "I don't know how, but somehow it will be."

She gives him a small, grateful wave and goes up the steps resolutely, only pausing for a moment to look at the closed attic door and spare a thought for the ghost behind it. The anger she felt toward him earlier is still lurking somewhere inside her, but it's mingled with pity as well: she doesn't have much insight into the sort of man Edwin Crawley was, despite having suffered through what she is now certain were the last moments of his life with him, but he _was_ a man, and no doubt never wanted or expected to become the unhappy and confused thing he is now.

"I'll do what I can for you," she says softly, hoping he can hear her. "I'll do my best, and then perhaps we'll both have peace."

It isn't as cold in her room as it was when the snow was falling, but it's still more than cold enough for her to make short work of undressing and then wrapping up as warmly as she can for bed. From the pocket of her daytime dress, she takes the bottle again and reads the instructions through, then reads them again just to be certain she has them right. There's a tiny metal spoon tied to the neck with a bit of string, for measuring, and she uses this to mix the right amount of powder into a scant inch of water at the bottom of the mug from her washstand.

Cradling the mug in both hands, she sits at the foot of the bed and stares into it, feeling sick with anxiety. In her Irvington Square life, before everything went wrong, she sometimes went to the theatre with Mrs Benton, who would buy her a ticket for the gallery before taking her own seat in one of the boxes below. On one of these excursions, the play was _Romeo and Juliet_ , and she remembers being transfixed by the scene in which a despairing Juliet drank the draught that would feign her death. Now she is Juliet, preparing not to die (she hopes), but to take a similar leap into the unknown. She has no idea if she will dream, and if she does, what the dream will bring her, but like Juliet, she has no other choice.

The liquid in the mug is grainy and faintly bitter, but she gets it down in a single swallow. Then she curls up on the bed, pulls the quilt around her shoulders and lies there watching the fan of golden lamplight on the wall, waiting for sleep to overtake her.


	23. Chapter 23

_Give me the box. You'll die if you don't._ _Give me the box and then take my hand._

It's the dream all over again, the lake and the storm, and she's thrashing and flailing, trying to hold onto the box and keep from sinking and stay away from this person who means her harm, all at the same time. Her head dips all the way under the water, and it goes up her nose and down her throat, burning and choking and making her gag.

 _I'm drowning_ , she thinks, but then another, separate thought bubbles up and says: _No you're not. It's Edwin who's drowning._

 _But I am Edwin._

 _Not completely_ , she thinks, but just then she goes under again, and bobs back up to a crack of thunder that nearly deafens her. The boat is out of reach now, pushed away by the wind and the rough water, but she can see the figure inside it more clearly now; a figure that has Reggie's familiar fair hair and narrow face. Reggie is leaning over the side and looking panicked, and she tries to hold onto the box with one arm and extend the other one toward him.

 _Hold on, Ed._ She can see that Reggie is shouting by the shape of his mouth and the way the cords in his neck stand out, but the wrath of the storm makes his voice sound faint and small. _Hold on—_

 _I can't_ , she calls back, and on the last word, a brilliant white flash lights up the whole world, hot and bright as the heart of a star. Her arms clench convulsively round the box, and then in an instant, the white light blinks out and she sees nothing, hears nothing, feels nothing.

Bit by bit, she becomes aware that she is moving, sliding over loose stones and then wet grass. Someone has hold of her feet and is dragging her roughly across the ground, breathing hard with the effort, and occasionally stopping to rest before beginning again. It ought to hurt, but it doesn't; her whole body feels stiff and numb and heavy as a side of meat hung up to age. In the distance, she hears a faint grumble of thunder, as if the storm is moving away, and wonders how much time has passed.

 _Something is wrong with me_ , she thinks, as she slides to a halt and her feet are dropped carelessly to the earth. _Something is very wrong._

She lies rigid, staring up at the sky, which is no longer black with clouds, but a blind, pearly white, and in a moment Reggie's face comes into view above her. There's wetness on his cheeks, and at first she thinks he must have fallen into the water too, but then she sees that his eyes are red-rimmed and his upper lip is slick with snot, and realises he has been crying.

 _You fool_ , _Edwin,_ he says _. You ought to have known I wouldn't hurt you, not really. And now look what's happened. Just look._

He slaps her cheek, a hard blow that should roll her head to the side, but she remains in the same position, gazing upward with wide-open eyes that never seem to blink or close.

 _I have to think what to do_ , Reggie says, and sits down on the ground, disappearing from her field of vision. This is frustrating, but a memory nudges at the back of her mind, like a message from another life, and suggests that she can get up and look around if she really wants to.

 _Control the dream_ , she thinks, and suddenly she is standing behind Reggie, looking down at the back of his black frock coat, and just beyond him, the body of another young man, perhaps a few years older, stretched out on the trampled, muddy grass. The second man has fair hair like Reggie's, and is wearing a similar dark coat and light-coloured breeches, but his clothes are in rags, marred by colossal burn holes with brown-singed edges. One of his high boots is missing; the other one is just a leather upper and a broken heel, with no sole or toe. There's lake weed wrapped round his legs and a long scorch mark down one side of his face, and still clasped in his arms is the fateful green box, with its lid knocked askew.

 _Ah_ , she thinks in triumph, and wills herself forward, eager to look into that dark opening and see the treasure inside, but though she can move closer, she finds she cannot touch the box or open it any further, no matter how she strains. She looks at Reggie to see if perhaps he is planning to open it, but Reggie is huddled up, rocking back and forth, muttering to himself.

 _What can I do_ , he moans. _What can I do, Ed?_

 _Pick up the box,_ she thinks furiously at him. _I died protecting it. The least you can do is make certain it's safe._

 _I need to find stones,_ Reggie says as if he has reached a decision. _Bigger ones than these._ _And I need to get you out of sight while I work._

 _Work at what?_ she wonders, but he is standing up now and grabbing the body by its ankles, starting to drag it again, and now that she is on the outside she can see how terrible this looks: how the body is jolted about as it goes over dips and bumps; how Reggie's handsome face is set in a grimace, teeth bared like an animal's, as he hauls it along. She doesn't want to see any more, but she is being pulled along helplessly after the body as it goes, and all at once she is gripped by an awful fear that she may be forced back into it somehow.

 _No!_ she thinks, and on that thought, she wakes up so abruptly it's like being catapulted out of the dream and into the real world. She is sitting up in bed, in the half-light of an early winter morning, with her hands outstretched in either supplication or self-defence. The lamp is still lit, looking pale and feeble against the dawn, and the mug that held the sleeping draught is still on her bedside table, with a film of dried white residue on its rim.

"Oh God," she says weakly. "Oh Edwin, poor boy."

Thinking of Edwin makes her look down at her own body, wanting to make sure that she is truly herself again. She feels her arms and legs and face with shaking hands, and when she is satisfied that they all belong to her, she lies back against the pillow and closes her eyes. There's a lingering bitter taste in her mouth and a vague, unreal sense of not being fully awake, both of which she expects are courtesy of the powder. She can't deny it worked—this was the closest thing to a normal night's sleep she's had since the whole miserable affair began—but she doesn't like the way it makes her feel at all. At least, she thinks, she woke up in her own bed and not in a tomb like Juliet.

Someone raps at the door, and she calls out "Coming" to let Daisy know that there won't be a repeat of the previous morning's dramatics. Her eyes are still shut, but her mind is whirring away, considering what she needs to tell Molesley and wondering how soon she can snatch a moment alone with him. If only she had been able to take him up on his offer and he were here with her right now...

She shakes her head at herself, disapproving of her own weakness in wishing for impossible things. If she wants to see Molesley, there is nothing for it but to go downstairs and meet him like a respectable person. With that thought, she throws back her quilt and begins preparing for the day.


	24. Chapter 24

_Note: ffnet was playing up yesterday and I don't think this story ever updated on the main Downton Abbey page. If it feels like nothing is making sense, you may want to go back and check if you've seen the previous chapter. Sorry about that!_

* * *

"So he was struck by lightning?" Molesley asks. They're standing together under the leafless trees all the way at the far end of the yard, near the entrance where tradespeople come in with deliveries, stamping their feet and blowing on their fingers to keep off the cold. "I thought he'd drowned."

"Well, he may have done, after he was knocked unconscious," Phyllis says, "but I don't think that white flash could have been anything but lightning, and I don't know what else would have burnt his skin and clothes that way. Reginald must have been just far enough away in the boat to be safe, or the box Edwin was holding might have attracted it to him somehow. I think it's silver under all the enamelling."

Molesley lets out a low whistle. "Hard luck for him, being killed by the thing he was trying to guard."

"Hard luck for both of them," Phyllis says. "Reggie was cut up about it. He'd been crying, and he said to me _—_ to Edwin, I mean _—_ that he hadn't meant to hurt him really. I think he was terribly frightened. He was the younger brother, after all, hardly more than a boy."

"You feel sorry for him?"

"He'd made a mistake he couldn't undo," Phyllis says simply. "I know what that's like." She sighs. "I'll say one thing for that sleeping powder, it kept me asleep long enough to have more of the dream than I ever have before. I suppose that's good."

"It's good," Molesley reassures her. "Now we know what really happened, out there on the lake."

"But that isn't what Edwin wants to know. He wants the box, and we're no closer to finding out what became of it or where it is now." She feels tears forming and looks down at the dirty mess of trodden-on snow at her feet to hide them, remembering how Molesley reacted the last time she wept in front of him. "And that means I've got to try again, because he's still up there, Mr Molesley, he's still there and he can't rest, and as long as he can't rest, neither can I."

Before Molesley can answer that, the kitchen door bangs open and Daisy comes a little way into the yard with a basin full of dishwater to empty.

"Her Ladyship's ringing for you, Miss Baxter, and Mr Molesley, Mr Carson said you were to come in and finish the polishing for tonight." She dumps the basin, sending up a cloud of steam that smells faintly of boiled turnips and old cloths, and looks around, shivering. "Why on earth do you two want to stand out here, anyway? It's freezing."

"Tell Mr Carson that Mr Molesley will be right in," Phyllis calls back, "and I'm on my way up to her Ladyship."

Daisy vanishes again, and Phyllis looks up at Molesley.

"Tonight, then," she says. "And this time I'll stay in the dream as long as I possibly can."

After their conversation, she drifts through the afternoon and evening as if she is asleep already, preoccupied with the details of the dream she already knows and the fresh horrors that may be waiting for her on this attempt. If only she could miss out the parts she has seen before and go directly to something new, she thinks, instead of starting over at the beginning. It seems a waste of time, not to mention the fact that she doesn't want to experience Edwin's death again if she can help it. She's brushing out Lady Grantham's hair for bed when it occurs to her that she may be able to do this after all: if the dreams are really Edwin's memories that she is somehow accessing subconsciously (a word she has picked up from Molesley), then all the memories are already there, like stories in a book. All she needs to do is turn to the right page, as it were.

"You're very quiet tonight, Baxter," Cora says, interrupting her train of thought. "I hope you haven't had bad news?"

"Oh," Phyllis says, startled. "No, milady, but it's kind of you to ask. I've—I've just been thinking about the book Lord Grantham let me borrow. It's really quite interesting."

"I'm sure it is, if you like that sort of thing." Cora smiles at her in the mirror. "Have you found out anything scandalous about the Crawley family? I've always thought they were a dull, predictable lot myself."

"There's nothing scandalous in the book," Phyllis says, thinking how disturbingly easy it is to lie by omission. She smooths the brush through Cora's dark hair again and admires how it gleams in the mellow light: all the hours she has spent washing and brushing and anointing it have not been in vain. "But there are some strange things. Did you know that the third Earl was actually the younger son in the family? He inherited the title and the book doesn't say why."

"Really?" Cora pulls off her heavy wedding rings and drops them into a little china dish on the dressing table. "I've heard of the third Earl, of course _—_ he was the one who nearly lost the estate _—_ but I didn't know he had an elder brother. Perhaps the brother died?"

 _There's no perhaps about it,_ Phyllis thinks, but keeps brushing without missing a beat.

"I wouldn't know, milady," she says. "As I said, the book doesn't give a reason." Swiftly, she separates out strands of hair and makes a long, loose plait down Cora's back. "There, I think that will do. How is your head feeling tonight?"

"Much better," Cora says, pressing her fingers to her temples. "It's good to have all those pins out. I think I'll go straight to bed, though, and you ought to do the same, Baxter, or at least don't stay up too late reading that book. All the people in it are long gone, rest their souls. There's no point letting them interfere with the here and now."

Phyllis wishes her a good night and goes up to bed marvelling at how blithely certain her Ladyship is that the dead are dead, and wishing that she could return to the same state of blissful ignorance herself. That part is almost the worst of it, she thinks: even if she and Molesley succeed in granting the ghost peace, she will never be able to un-know that it existed in the first place. She may spend the rest of her life jumping at every unexpected shadow and sound, wondering if it's another spirit come to trouble her. Or—and this is a truly appalling notion—she may become a ghost herself when she dies, and linger about unhappily for a hundred years, looking for something she can only half-remember.

She tries not to think about either of these possibilities as she undresses, mixes the sleeping powder into water, and drinks it down, grimacing at the taste. In a way it's less frightening than the night before, because she knows what to expect, but the idea of being trapped inside Edwin's dead body again makes her want to jump up and run, out of the house and across the lawn and through the wood, until she can't run any more.

 _Control the dream_ , she reminds herself. Her eyelids are starting to grow heavy, and there's a blurred halo around everything, from the bulb in the lamp to the jug on the washstand. _Control—_

A wave splashes over her face, and she coughs and flails, clinging to the box, as Reggie calls to her from the boat.

 _Not here,_ she thinks, _later—_

She's being dragged across the grass, numb and unresponsive, eyes staring up at the sky. _No! Not this! Anything but this!_

 _I need to get you out of sight while I work,_ Reggie says, and pulls at the body that is no longer hers.

Phyllis doesn't especially want to see this again either, but it is so close to where she left the dream last time that she's afraid she'll miss something important if she jumps ahead, and so she lets it play out, lets herself be tugged invisibly after the body as Reggie hauls it up the slope that leads from the valley's floor to the nearest of the high hills that surround it, thrusting upward to the sky. There are stones here, boulders in fact, spilling across the earth like a giant's abandoned game of marbles, and Reggie drags the body behind one of them and lays it out flat on its back. As he does, he seems to notice for the first time that the lid of the box is ajar, and his eyes go wide and horrified.

 _No no no no_ , he says, and dropping to his knees, wrenches wildly at the box to extract it from Edwin's dead embrace. With a final jerk, he gets it free, scrabbles the lid the rest of the way off, and then sags down as if his whole body is melting like candle wax. The noise that comes from his lips is not a shout of anger or frustration, but a low, desperate groan; the sound of someone in too much pain to give voice to it.

 _Only one_ , he says. _After all this, only one left._

 _Only one what?_ Phyllis wonders, but Reggie answers that question for her by reaching into the box and coming out with a roundish, irregular piece of tarnished silver clutched between his thumb and index finger. He holds it up to the light, and Phyllis can see a design and a few letters embossed on the reverse side that is facing her. Then he clenches it into his fist as if he would like to crush it to dust, and tears roll down his face.

 _Forgive me, Edwin_ , he says hoarsely. _You died for nothing, and our treasure is drowned where I can never reclaim it. And I would give it all over to you if it would bring you back, I swear._

He sits back on his heels, head down, and sobs like a child for what feels like an eternity. At last, he drags the sleeve of his coat across his face, crams the coin—for that is what Phyllis is now certain it is—into his pocket, and gets up to collect stones. As he begins setting them out in a rough rectangle around Edwin's body, the dream collapses on itself and disappears, and in her bedroom a hundred miles and a century away, Phyllis rolls over, still in the grip of the sleeping powder, and dreams of nothing at all until morning.


	25. Chapter 25

The following morning feels like a conspiracy by the universe to prevent Phyllis from talking to Mr Molesley. She wakes up feeling sick and dizzy with what she thinks must be the aftereffects of the sleeping draught, and has to lie in bed so long waiting for it to pass that she is late to breakfast, arriving just in time to see Molesley push his chair back and rush off to answer a ringing bell. With Mrs Hughes' eagle eye resting heavily on her, she forces down a few spoonfuls of porridge and then goes up to wait on Lady Grantham, who has fully recovered from her headache and is ready with a long list of requests that keep her busy until lunchtime, when her Ladyship sets off for the Dower House with a miserable-looking Lady Edith in tow.

By then, Molesley is upstairs serving lunch to the rest of the family, and immediately afterward, Mr Carson sends him off to do an errand that seems to drag on forever, leaving Phyllis to sit in the hall and sort restlessly through her coloured threads and embroidery silks. An hour crawls past before she can't bear it any longer, and decides to walk out as far as the lane and see if she can catch him coming back. The cold is still fierce, and the clouds rolling in from the north hint darkly at more snow, but the exercise clears her head, and by the time she spots Molesley's tall shape in its familiar grey overcoat, she feels almost normal. He's trudging along with a brown-paper-wrapped parcel tucked under his arm and his eyes fixed on the path, but then he glances up and sees her, and his glum expression melts into a surprised smile.

"There you are. I've been looking for you all day."

"I've been looking for you too." She falls into step with him. "I've got so much to tell you."

She goes through the whole story while they walk the rest of the way up the lane and across the lawn, and finishes up just before they reach the entrance to the yard, with the account of Reginald building what looked like a burial cairn.

"Why would he hide the body, though?" Molesley asks. "It was an accident, Edwin dying, and with their treasure gone, it's not as if anyone could accuse Reggie of doing away with him for it."

Phyllis shrugs, at a loss. "He was so upset, perhaps he just wasn't thinking clearly, or perhaps he felt guilty about Edwin's death. He did have some part in it, you know, even if he didn't hit Edwin over the head or push him into the water. Edwin was frightened of him, and that's why he fell, and why he wouldn't just take Reggie's hand when he had the chance. Well, and because he wanted to protect the box and what was in it."

"The coins," Molesley says. "What did it look like, the one you saw in the dream?"

"Have you got something I can draw on?"

With his free hand, Molesley fumbles awkwardly in his coat pockets and pulls out an old bill and a chewed stub of pencil. He offers Phyllis the flat surface of the parcel as an impromptu writing desk, and she turns the bill over to the blank side and draws an irregular circle.

"It was lopsided, not perfectly round, and it looked like silver. Tarnished, but not completely black yet. I only saw the back of it, but there were two daggers pointing down, like this—" She sketches the daggers in. "There was a sort of dome-shaped thing between them, and a dotted line around, and an inscription." Underneath the drawing, she writes EID MAR in neat, careful capital letters. "The way Reggie talked, I suppose the box must have been full of them, before it went into the lake."

Molesley frowns over her drawing. "It looks like some sort of Roman coin, but that's nothing so special. You can hardly turn over the earth for a new garden plot without digging up one or two of them. Maybe we can ask Mr Dawes at the school..."

"No!" The word comes out sharper than she means it to, and she deliberately softens her tone to explain. "I don't think we should let it get about in the village. Someone might think we'd found something we had no right to and were keeping it, and next thing you know the police would be here asking questions. I don't want that."

"Well, someplace further away, then," Molesley says. "Ripon, or even York. I've never looked for a coin shop there, but I'm certain there must be one. The only thing is, I haven't got a day off coming for a while, and with the mood Mr Carson's in, I don't think I ought to ask. Not that I wouldn't like to get away from Barrow for a bit. He's had me polishing things I didn't even know existed."

"I might be able to do it." Phyllis tucks the bill and pencil back into his pocket for him and automatically straightens the drape of his coat, the same way she does for Cora. "Her Ladyship mentioned going to buy Christmas presents for the children, and I'm sure she'd take me with her if I asked. She likes to have me along when she's shopping anyway, to choose material for sewing."

"When is she going?"

"Soon, I think," Phyllis says. "Oh—someone's coming."

They both stand aside as Jimmy comes striding through the gate, wrapped up warm against the cold, and holding a lead with an excited dog straining at the end.

"Hello, Miss Baxter," he says to Phyllis, and then to Molesley, "It was your turn to do the afternoon walk, I'll have you know."

"Mr Carson sent me to fetch this," Molesley protests, indicating his parcel, but Jimmy grins and waves a dismissive hand.

"I don't mind. I'd rather be out here in the fresh air than in there with people after me all the time. You had better get in, though. It won't be long before Carson's looking for you."

"Thanks," Molesley says gloomily, and Jimmy laughs, whistles to the dog, who is sniffing Phyllis's shoes, and walks on.

"You should go, if you can," Molesley says when Jimmy is out of earshot. "It could only do you good to get out of this house for a day, someplace where that thing in the attic can't get at you. I'm afraid it's wearing on you just by being there."

"I can't stay away from the attic forever," Phyllis says. "Learning about the coin is all well and good, but I don't see how it gets us any closer to finding the box. I need to tell Edwin what I saw in the dream; what happened to him and what his brother did afterward."

"But you can't." Molesley looks horrified. "It hurt you the last time. You can't take any more of that."

"I've got to, though," Phyllis says. "It's all a circle, don't you see? The more I tell him, the more he remembers, and the more detailed the dream gets. Sooner or later we're bound to get to something that will give us a clue where to look for the box."

"Maybe," Molesley says, "or maybe something awful will happen to you. Even it—the thing—"

"Edwin."

"All right, if you like, even _Edwin_ said you needed to heal before it—before it did that to you again." Impulsively, he reaches out and clasps her hand in his. "You don't have to sacrifice yourself for it, Miss Baxter. Help it, yes, but not at your own expense. You're worth more than that."

"I'm not," Phyllis says. The sincerity on his face shames her so badly that she lowers her gaze; looks at their joined hands instead. Sometimes, she thinks, it is almost a burden to be held in such high regard.

"You are to me," Molesley says. He holds on a moment longer and then turns her loose. "What can we do?"

Phyllis pulls her knitted scarf closer round her neck and cups her hands over her nose and mouth, hoping warm breath will thaw her face a bit.

"I'll go up and tell him what we've learnt," she says, slightly muffled. "He can understand me; it's only I can't hear him unless—you know. I won't let that happen until after I've found out about the coin."

"Will it listen to you if you tell it not to?"

"I think so. He doesn't mean me any harm, not really." _I hope_ , she thinks, but does not add. "And I'll ask her Ladyship about going into York, if you'll help me find the name of a place where I might ask about the coin. I can do a better sketch than that one and take it along to show."

"Of course," Molesley says, and shifts Mr Carson's parcel to his other arm. "I suppose I'd better get this inside before Jimmy comes back and sets the dog on me. She's a vicious thing."

Phyllis smiles, knowing full well that Isis lets the children climb on her and pull at her ears and put their fingers in her mouth, all without the slightest hint of a growl or snap. "Yes, you had better. And I'll see you at the table later."

Molesley goes through the gate past her, heading into the house, and she tips her head back and looks up at the high pitch of the roof where she knows Edwin is waiting. To Molesley he is still a ghost, an _it_ , but now that she has seen his human shape lying sad and broken and empty on the pebbled lake shore, she can't help but think of him by his name. He had been so very young, and so afraid, and he hadn't deserved to die that way, far from home, or to endure his lonely existence for so many years afterward. For the first time, she wants to help him for his own sake, not only to secure her freedom. She knows Molesley is right and she must protect herself too, but surely there is a way to do both.

Mulling it over, she turns and walks slowly through the yard, toward the warmth of the kitchen, and high above her, a pale shape that has been lingering at one of the attic windows turns too, and drifts away.


	26. Chapter 26

Late that night, when the house is asleep, Phyllis slips out of her room and ventures alone up the stairs to the attic. She hasn't told Mr Molesley that she intends to go tonight: he means well and only wants to protect her, but she feels that this is a conversation she and Edwin should have on their own. Unlike her other midnight excursions, this one does not frighten her, nor does she worry about being caught. She feels dreamy and a little detached from everything around her as she pads along the corridor and opens the stairway door, as if she is a ghost herself and can be invisible if she chooses.

The attic is dark, except for a few silver shafts of moonlight piercing one of the far windows, but she knows her way around, now, and doesn't bother with a light.

"Edwin?" she says into the shadows.

Nothing happens at first, but then she feels the needling buzz of the ghost's presence across her arms and chest and face, followed by a nearly overwhelming wave of ozone scent. These things remind her of the dream, and she understands for the first time that this is because they come from the same place in the confused jumble of Edwin's half-forgotten final memories. She has experienced them herself, in the lake under the shadow of the storm.

"I can't see you," she says, and slowly the energy in the room concentrates itself and gathers into the ghost's familiar shape, hovering ten or so feet in front of her.

"That's better." Phyllis sits down on one of the crates and pulls her dressing gown closer round herself, even though the attic is warmer than her own room below. "I want to talk to you, but you mustn't talk back to me just yet. Do you remember, you told me it was too soon and I would be hurt?"

The ghost moves toward her a little, and she flinches involuntarily.

"Please. I have things to share with you, things I've learnt since we met last time, but I have to protect myself, too. Stay right there and I'll tell you everything, just like a story. It's a story about two brothers who both made mistakes and paid a terrible price."

She explains the drifting boat, the lightning flash, the way Reginald wept over Edwin's body, the loss of the silver coins. As she speaks, the ghost's glow pulses brighter and darker, darker and brighter, until she reaches the end and it flares so intensely that she has to shield her eyes with her hand.

"He didn't kill you, Edwin. He oughtn't to have done what he did, but he never meant for you to die. It was an accident. He would have taken it back if he could. Oh no, please don't, it's too _hot_ —" She feels her brows and lashes starting to singe and covers her face completely, suddenly terrified that she'll be blinded. Dazzling after-images dance in the blackness behind her closed eyes, and she wonders if the damage is already done, but when she looks again, tentatively, she can still see the ghost, cooler and dimmer now, as if he is subdued with shame over his own behaviour. He drifts away from her, retreating toward the depths of the attic, and she holds up a hand to stop him.

"No, don't go yet. I haven't finished. I need you to think about what I've told you; think and try to remember. There's so much I still don't understand. I don't know why your brother hid your body, or what he did with the box, or where he was during the time between your death and when he came home to Downton. And most of all, I don't know why you're here, Edwin, because by rights you ought still to be there by the lake shore, but you _are_."

The ghost dims even further, and she feels a stab of sorrow for him, imagining the fair, handsome young man he once was.

"I have to leave now," she says. "I'm going tomorrow to speak to someone about the coin, to see if I can learn anything about it that might help. I promise I'll come and tell you whatever I find out."

Even with her new, softer feelings toward the ghost, she doesn't like to turn her back on him, but she does it anyway, drawing herself up in the graceful, erect posture she was taught as a young girl working her way through the ranks of service. Crossing to the door, she puts her hand on the knob and finds it won't budge. A bubble of panic starts to swell in her throat, threatening to burst and start her screaming, but she takes in a long, slow, steadying breath and it subsides.

"I promised, didn't I, Edwin?" she says to the thick slab of the door. "I said I'd come back, and I will, so let me out."

With a gentle click, something in the lock releases, and the knob turns under her hand.

"Thank you," she says, and leaves without looking back.

Straight after breakfast the next morning, she's down at the station with Lady Grantham and Lady Edith, buying tickets and making certain they're settled in the first-class carriage before taking her own seat in third. Mr Molesley has somehow obtained the name of a numismatist with a shop in York, and telephoned ahead from the phone box outside the post office to ask directions for her, and she has the paper tucked safely into her handbag, along with her new and improved sketch of the Crawley brothers' coin. She has asked Cora for an hour of free time to do an errand of her own, and been granted permission to go when they break for lunch. Everything is in order, and yet she feels nervous, as if she's about to do something illicit or unseemly. She stares through the train's window without seeing anything of the snowy countryside rushing past, and rehearses the story that she and Molesley worked out in a hurried conversation just before she left. She has a cousin who is interested in old coins and has seen a photograph of one he can't identify. This sketch was made from his description. Can Mr Campbell, the numismatist, tell her what it is? Her cousin would so like to know.

She runs through this in her head over and over throughout the shopping, while she trails behind Cora and Edith and listens to them exclaim over toy trains for Master George and miniature tea sets for Miss Sybbie, and then while she is examining bolts of cloth and advising Cora on which ones would be best for next spring's coats and dresses. At one o'clock, she parts from the two ladies outside the hotel where they intend to eat their veal scallops and salmon mousse, and makes her way through the streets to the road where the coin shop is located. It's dark and poky and vaguely unsavoury, and she stands on the pavement outside for a moment before deciding that if she can face a ghost in the attic, she can certainly go into this shop and speak to a coin fancier.

A bell jingles softly as she pushes the door open, and she wonders why Mr Campbell bothers having a bell at all: the shop is so small that it would be impossible to miss someone entering it. She's been expecting display cases full of rare coins, all polished up to show off the gleam of gold and silver, but there's not so much as a dropped penny on the floor; all she can see is a low wooden counter with book-stuffed shelves towering to the ceiling on either side of it, and seated on a stool behind it, a balding, burly man whose waistcoat buttons are straining to meet across his middle. He's reading one of the books, licking his finger before turning each page in a way guaranteed to give Mr Carson apoplectic fits, and as she approaches, he sets it aside and looks across the counter at her. Behind a pair of spectacles, his eyes are blue like Molesley's, but there's something cold about them, as if someone has pushed a pair of ice chips into his face.

"What can I do for you, Miss...?"

"Tierney," says Phyllis. It's her mother's maiden name, and the only alias she thinks she could give without stuttering. "I believe you spoke to my cousin on the telephone?"

"Ah yes, your cousin." Mr Campbell braces his heavy, hairy hands on the edge of the counter, heaves himself up, and turns to wedge the book into a space that, like his waistcoat, is a size too small. "He said you'd be bringing me a sketch of a coin. Let's have a look at it, then."

Phyllis undoes the clasp on her handbag and extracts the folded sheet of paper. She took some time over the drawing early this morning, doing it properly with the soft pencils she uses to sketch out designs for dressmaking, and Mr Campbell's gingerish eyebrows go up in surprise when she spreads it on the counter in front of him.

"That's well done. You ought to see some of the chicken scratches people bring in here. Are you the one who drew it?"

"Yes," says Phyllis, who is finding she doesn't especially care for Mr Campbell and would rather not engage him in conversation any more than she has to. "Thank you. Is it something you recognise?"

"It certainly is." He pulls the sketch closer and squints at it over the tops of his spectacles. "This, Miss Tierney, is an Eid Mar silver denarius, and it was issued by Marcus Brutus sometime around A.D. 43 to commemorate the assassination of Julius Caesar."

"Oh?"

"Oh, indeed." He laughs. "The obverse side—the front, that is—would have a portrait of Brutus himself, and an inscription that stood for Brutus's own name and the name of the moneyer whose mint produced it. This inscription, here—" he taps the words EID MAR with one finger, "this stands for 'Eidibus Martiis,' or the Ides of March."

"Beware the Ides of March," says Phyllis, remembering an old lesson from her school days.

"Exactly," Mr Campbell says. "That's when they did him in, Brutus and the Roman senators, stabbed him until the ground was awash with blood and they couldn't lift their arms to stab any more, and then Brutus went and had a coin struck to remember it by. Only a few of these coins have survived—maybe forty or fifty in the whole world—and that makes them very rare and very costly, not like the common ones people dig up in fields."

"How costly?"

"The last one I heard of sold for a hundred thousand pounds at auction." He laughs again, not very nicely, and leans across the counter toward her until she can feel his breath on her cheek. "Have you and your cousin actually found one of these? Got it there in your handbag too, have you?"

"No, I haven't," Phyllis says. Her dislike of Mr Campbell ratchets up another few notches. One of the many things prison has left her with is a finely tuned sense of when people mean to do her harm, and she doesn't trust this man at all. She picks up her sketch and takes a step back toward the door of the shop, hoping it looks natural and not as if she is planning an escape.

"I really should be going soon. Someone is waiting for me. I just have one more question—"

"And what might that be?"

"Would someone know how valuable this coin was without being a numismatist? I mean, if they did happen to find one somewhere." She's thinking of Edwin and Reginald, who had been convinced they had discovered a treasure and had, perhaps, been more right than they had known. Doing sums in her head isn't her forte, but even a rough calculation tells her that if the green box had held a hundred of the Eid Mar coins, it would have been worth a fortune. No wonder poor Edwin had been so desperate to protect it.

Mr Campbell shrugs, folds his arms across his barrel chest and stares her down. "They might. If they could read Latin, they'd know it was connected to Julius Caesar, at least."

Phyllis thanks him for his help and leaves as quickly as she can, walking fast and not stopping until she is halfway back to the hotel. She knows nothing makes people look more suspicious than glancing over their shoulders to see if they're being followed—yet another bit of unwanted knowledge she acquired during her incarceration—but she can't help checking a few times just to be certain. For someone who never touched her or made an overt threat, Mr Campbell somehow managed to be utterly terrifying. Better not to tell Mr Molesley, who will be beside himself if he thinks he sent her into danger.

She would like to talk to Mr Molesley now, both to update him on what she's discovered and to have the comfort of hearing his voice, but she doesn't see how it's possible. There's a public telephone box across the street, but Mr Carson doesn't like the servants to use the downstairs telephone except in an emergency, and would probably perish on the spot if a member of his staff rang up and asked to speak to another one.

It will just have to wait until she gets home, she decides, and looks at her watch to see whether it's time to meet Lady Grantham and Lady Edith yet. There's still half an hour to go—the visit to Mr Campbell's shop felt as if it lasted days, but in fact was only a few minutes—and even though she isn't at all hungry, she supposes she ought to eat something. Fainting on an icy, busy road is not the way she wants to end this excursion. With that thought, she continues on in the direction of the hotel, half looking for a place that will be safe for a woman on her own, and half daydreaming about rare silver coins that can drive men to madness.


	27. Chapter 27

The chauffeur is waiting to collect them at the station when they return, a fact for which Phyllis is immensely grateful. All the large purchases are being delivered separately in a day or two, but there's still more than enough to carry, and she has the bulk of it. Lady Grantham and Lady Edith both seem as tired as she is, and the short trip back to the house passes mostly in silence. They're still in time for upstairs dinner, but Cora says she wants an early night and will eat in her room, so Phyllis carries up a tray, feeling rather relieved that she doesn't need to go through the process of undressing, then dressing, then undressing again.

"Were you able to get your errand done, Baxter?" Cora's voice is soft and blurred with fatigue, but she gives Phyllis a kind smile anyway.

"I was, milady, thank you." Phyllis undoes the buttons down the back of Cora's dress, waits while she pulls her arms out of the sleeves, then lays it out on the bed and inspects it for any spots or holes that will need attention. "Shall I fill the bath for you?"

"Not tonight, I think. I'll be lucky not to fall asleep in my soup. And as for his Lordship, well, he had better not come to bed expecting anything, because it isn't on offer." Cora laughs, and Phyllis smiles at the joke. Long ago, she worked for a lady who was something of an exhibitionist and had found it amusing to ring for the servants while in the midst of entertaining male visitors in her bedroom—a sight that came as a great shock to then-sixteen-year-old Phyllis the first time she'd witnessed it—so Cora's idea of a risqué comment seems charming and innocent in comparison. She finishes readying Cora for bed, takes down her hair, and then leaves her to it, promising to come back later for the dinner tray.

Downstairs, she finds she has missed the servants' tea, but Daisy slips her a plate of odds and ends from the upstairs meal, and she takes it into the hall to sit on her own at the long table, listening with half an ear to the controlled chaos going on down the corridor in the kitchen. The sketch of the Eid Mar coin is in her pocket, and between bites of oyster puffs and rice and lamb, she unfolds it and examines it again, remembering how the dreadful Mr Campbell's frosty eyes had gleamed when he had seen it. On the way home in the train, she'd had time to think at length about how Reginald Crawley had stuffed the coin carelessly into his pocket before beginning the work of hiding his brother's body, and whether or not he might have brought it home to Downton with him. Surely if he had, and if it were worth as much as Mr Campbell had said, he would have sold it rather than lose the estate? Or had it still been so precious that he couldn't bear to part with it? She rather hopes it's nowhere in the house: she doesn't believe in curses as such, but she can't deny that the coin seems to have a bad effect on people, and she doesn't like to imagine the current Lord Grantham acquiring it and behaving irrationally. It ought to have been lost with the rest, she thinks, drowned at the bottom of the faraway lake where no one can find it.

She's almost finished eating when Molesley passes the door to the hall, spots her at the table and comes in.

"Oh good, you're back safe." He puts his hands behind his back. "When did you and her Ladyship get in?"

"An hour or two ago." Phyllis lays her fork down, not wanting to be impolite by eating in front of him. "Shouldn't you be upstairs serving? I don't want you to be in any trouble."

"They're at the coffee-and-brandy stage now. I've got a minute or two." He nods at the sketch. "What did our coin-dealing friend have to say?"

"Well, you were right, it is a Roman coin, but not just any old Roman coin. He said it's in remembrance of Julius Caesar's death and it's frightfully rare. It's worth a hundred thousand pounds in today's money, so I suppose it would have been about the same in Edwin and Reggie's day."

"That much!" Molesley looks impressed. "A whole box of them would have been worth a mint."

"Yes, but would the boys have known that? I asked Mr Campbell, and he said if someone could read Latin they'd know it was about Caesar, but..."

"Well, I expect they could, at least a bit," Molesley says. "The Crawleys have been sending their sons off to posh schools for as long as there have been posh schools to send them to, so they'd have had Latin and Greek beaten into their heads there. I always wanted to learn, but it wasn't something that was taught at the village school, and it was too hard to do on my own."

There's a dejected note in his voice, and Phyllis gives him a sympathetic smile.

"One day, maybe. It's not too late." She pushes back her chair, folds the drawing up to put into her pocket, and picks up her plate. "Here, take the last oyster puff so it won't go to waste."

"I'll get my gloves dirty," Molesley says, looking at his hands with an expression of loathing. "Rotten things, I hate them."

"Well, here then." Phyllis plucks the oyster puff from the plate and pops it into his mouth before he can say anything else. He makes a muffled, surprised noise, and she presses her lips together to hold back a laugh.

"Go on, back upstairs before Mr Carson or Mr Barrow comes raging in here looking for you. I'm afraid I've got to go to bed as soon as I've collected her Ladyship's tray, but try to come down early tomorrow morning and we'll talk before breakfast."

Molesley heads for the stairs with his mouth still full, and Phyllis delivers her plate to the scullery and then goes softly up to Lady Grantham's bedroom, where the fire has burnt down low and Cora is no more than a shadowy, sleeping shape in the bed, and removes the tray without making a sound.

Some time later, in her own, much chillier room, she sits in her chair, dressed for bed, holding the bottle of sleeping powder and wondering if she ought to take it or not. Dr Clarkson did say to be sparing with it, she thinks, and decides this is justification enough to skip a night. She sets it on the bedside table, so if Mrs Hughes should come in she will think it's been used, and on impulse, takes the folded coin sketch and tucks it under her pillow as if that may help encourage a dream of the coin. Then she gets into bed, stretching her feet out toward the hot-water bottle nestled between the sheet and blanket, and picks up _History of the Crawley Family_ , which has been languishing unread since that first night she and Molesley opened it.

"Reginald Archibald Crawley, third Earl of Grantham," she reads aloud, "succeeded to the title in 1829." Reggie would have been thirty by then, still young, but a much older man than the wretched boy who had wept so hard beside the lake. How had he felt about taking the place that should have been his brother's? How had he managed to keep the secret for so many years, watching his family worrying and waiting for Edwin to come back and knowing that he never would? She knows that people who have experienced a terrible trauma sometimes forget the circumstances surrounding it, and she wonders if something like this may have happened to Reggie; perhaps he never told anyone about Edwin's fate because he truly didn't know. It's a pity, she thinks, that Reggie's ghost isn't floating about in the attic too, available for questioning—but no, one ghost is quite enough; two might be the end of her.

Phyllis finishes re-reading the section on Reginald's tenure as the Earl—it skips very lightly over his financial difficulties, probably because the writer hadn't wanted to embarrass the Crawleys—and then starts in on his children. They're not an exciting lot, and she can feel herself getting drowsier as she reads, but thinks she can still fit in a few more pages before she switches off the lamp.

She doesn't notice the moment when she falls asleep, or when the book falls out of her hands and lands facedown on the bed beside her. All she knows is that she is near the lake again, among the tumbled rocks on the side of the hill, looking out over the water to the far side of the valley. The storm is gone; the sky is a deep robin's-egg blue with a few fluffy white clouds; and the lake itself is unruffled, a smooth endless sheet of glass.

 _I have been here so long_ , she thinks. Is it Edwin's thought or her own? She isn't sure, but she feels the truth of it; feels the weight of years on this place and on her soul. Many storms have passed over while she has sat here watching, and many people have come to the lake, but none of them have found the cairn, which is cleverly built into the lee of a huge boulder, so that it looks like a natural spill of stones and not something covering a body. She has thought of approaching someone, speaking to them, telling them _I am Edwin Crawley_ , but she never has, and now the words _Edwin Crawley_ are beginning to lose their meaning. _Edwin Crawley_ is hardly more important than _hills_ or _water_ or _sky_.

She doesn't know how long she waits before a small dark shape appears on the shore down below. When it does, she thinks it is only someone come to skim stones on the lake's surface, or perhaps to paint the scenery, as people sometimes do. But this person is different: he turns and looks directly up the slope to where she sits, raising a hand to shade his eyes against the afternoon sun, and then he begins to climb, somewhat hindered by a heavy canvas bag slung across his back with a thick leather strap. He makes his way up the side of the valley, stopping occasionally to mop his forehead with his sleeve, and at last he comes to the place where she is and stops, and she sees that she knows him.

 _It is you_ , she thinks, and then, _but who are you?_

 _I've come back_ , he says. _I'm sorry it's been so long. I wanted to come sooner, but...things have been difficult at home._

 _Where is home?_ she wants to ask. His face is so familiar and so strange at the same time, older than it ought to be, and his hair is a shade or two darker than the pale gold she remembers, as if time has dulled it.

 _I've come to take you back with me_ , he says. _I can't bring you back to life, or give you what you're owed, but I can bring you to your rightful place. I can take you there, Edwin._

The name strikes a chord of recognition in her, and she thinks, _I am Edwin_. _I am Edwin and you are—you are—_

 _I can take you home to Downton_ , he says, and then it clicks like the last bit of a puzzle snapping into place, and she knows his name.

 _I am Edwin. Downton is home. And you...you are Reggie._


	28. Chapter 28

_I'll take you home_ , Reggie says again, and unhooks the canvas bag from his shoulder, laying it out flat on the ground. He looks around, checking that no one is there to see what he is about to do, and then bends down and begins shifting stones from the cairn. They've settled and packed tightly together in the years since they were first placed there, with a thick layer of dirt and mould filling the crevices between them, and it's hard work for a man who is within shouting distance of middle age. But Reggie takes off his coat, turns back his shirtsleeves and persists, and slowly the heap of stones begins to diminish. Dust drifts upward as a dark gap appears near the top of the cairn, and Phyllis is suddenly gripped with terror and revulsion over what may have become of the body underneath. It's an emotion that is all hers and not Edwin's, and she struggles to look away, but finds she can't: Edwin watched this happen, and so must she.

Reggie's manicured, well-kept hands are filthy and bleeding, and he groans with effort as he heaves away a larger stone than the others, revealing not the rotting, stinking corpse of her fears, but the smooth ivory dome of a skull with a few wisps of what looks like hay lying around it. This is all that is left of Edwin, she realises with relief. Enough time has passed for nature to do its work and return his flesh to the earth.

 _Oh, Ed,_ Reggie says. He stops tearing at the stones for a moment and crouches in front of the cairn, reaching in to cup a hand tenderly round the curve of the skull's cranium. _If I could take it back I would. I've made a mess of everything. You would have done much better._ With the back of his free hand, he wipes his eyes, smearing dirt and blood across his face. _But I'll look after you now. I can do that much._

He resumes his work, tossing stones aside so hard that some of them go rolling down the slope, and exposing more and more of Edwin's remains: the delicate arch of the neck, the long bones of arms with shreds of a once-fine black frock coat clinging to them, the curve of ribs. The arms are crossed, and Phyllis can see the fateful green box clasped protectively beneath them. Reggie sees it too, grasps it by a corner and pulls it free.

 _I ought to throw this into the lake_ , he says bitterly. _I wish we had never found it. If you hadn't gone exploring in that Godforsaken hole..._ He stops and looks down at Edwin again, and his face softens. _No, it wasn't your fault. It was mine. I was greedy, and now I have nothing. It's all yours now, all that's left of it._ Turning, he tucks the box into the canvas bag, and then attacks the stones again, uncovering Edwin's legs and feet, still dressed in the remains of his boots. The sight of the full skeleton seems to leave Reggie shaken, and he hesitates, hands balled into fists, before beginning to pull the bones apart and stack them in the canvas bag along with the box. The dream breaks up along with them: she can sense herself rising toward the surface of consciousness, feel the cold of the air in her room and the weight of her bedcovers on top of her body. She fights against it, wanting to stay just a little longer and see what Reggie does next, but it's no use; she is already awake.

It's an inconvenient hour, too early to hope that Mr Molesley will be up and about, but too late to go to the attic and share what she has learnt with Edwin's ghost. Staying in bed to read doesn't appeal either, so she dresses and goes downstairs and out into the yard, where she discovers that it has snowed again overnight—not the heavy snow of a fortnight ago, but a thin coating that makes the cobbles slick and treacherous.

She makes her way carefully to the gate and looks out across the white expanse of lawn, past the bare-branched trees. This, she thinks, will have been the same view the two brothers saw as they were setting out on their journey, and that Reggie saw as he departed alone to bring Edwin's bones home again. He meant well, but she doubts it has given Edwin's spirit much comfort to be here. It might have been better to leave him by the lakeside, where at least there was peace.

"My, we are up early, aren't we?" says Thomas's voice behind her.

"I suppose we both are, Mr Barrow," Phyllis says without turning around. It crosses her mind that she ought to be startled by Thomas appearing out of nowhere, but after recent events, he seems less threatening than usual. At least he is alive and human.

"And what might you be doing outside on a freezing morning?"

"Looking at the snow."

"You've seen snow before."

"And you've seen me before, so why are you watching me?" Now she does turn and face him, feeling secretly gratified by his look of surprise at her unaccustomed sharpness. He wipes it away quickly and rearranges his face into a superior expression, though she can see a hint of sulkiness around the full lips.

"If you must know, Miss Baxter, I saw you through the window and wondered if you were all right. I make it my business to know what's going on in this house, and something has been going on with you these last few weeks. I told you I didn't care what you did with Molesley, and I meant what I said, but I'd like to think you're clever enough to be careful about it, whatever it is."

"Mr Molesley and I are good friends," Phyllis says neutrally. "There's nothing else to it."

Thomas huffs out a laugh. "Go on pretending that if you like. Just look after yourself, that's all. Molesley's too wet to get you into any real trouble, if you ask me, but you never know."

"Your concern is duly noted, Mr Barrow," Phyllis says. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go back inside and get warm before breakfast."

"Suit yourself," Thomas says. There's already a cigarette in his mouth, and he lights it, shakes out the match and flicks the charred end away as she turns on her heel to leave. She's only halfway across the yard when Mr Molesley himself appears, clearly looking for her.

"What's Barrow doing all the way out there? He's usually leaning on the wall as if the house will fall down without him to prop it up."

"He came out to talk to me."

"Did he?" Molesley frowns. "He wasn't bullying you, was he?"

"No," Phyllis says, "he was actually concerned about me, in his way."

"Concerned!" Molesley makes a scoffing noise that would do credit to Thomas himself. "I don't think he's ever been concerned about anyone in his life."

"Never mind, it doesn't matter." Phyllis slips her hand through the crook of his arm and he falls silent at once, as if stunned. "There won't be anyone in the boot room now, will there? We've got such an early start, there's almost half an hour left before breakfast."

The boot room is as deserted as she hoped it would be, and she fills him in quickly on the remaining details of her trip to Mr Campbell's shop and the latest dream.

"How much time had gone by between when Edwin died and when Reginald came back?" Molesley asks.

"Fifteen or twenty years, I think. Reggie looked quite a lot older. His hair had gone brownish, the way some fair people's does, and there were a few grey strands in it. And he said he hadn't done well with the title, so at least a few years must have passed for him to make mistakes in."

"And he brought the box back to Downton with him?"

"Well, he took it away from where it had been, near the lake shore," Phyllis says, "and he said it would be Edwin's to keep. I suppose he might have gone back on that later, when things were very bad, but I don't think he did. He was so torn up with guilt, I think he would rather have died himself than break that promise."

"So that means it's in the house or grounds somewhere," Molesley says. "That makes our job easier, at least. We know we don't have to find the lake or go hunting through every antique shop between here and wherever it is."

"Mightn't it just be on display in one of the upstairs rooms? I don't often have a reason to go anywhere but her Ladyship's bedroom, and now and then the drawing room if she calls for me there, so I wouldn't know."

Molesley shakes his head. "I've been in most of them—not all the bedrooms, but certainly every room the family use—and I've never seen anything like it. What if he buried Edwin's bones somewhere on the estate and put the box with them? We can't go around digging holes, if we could dig at all just now with the snow and the ground frozen."

The clatter of plates and forks on the servants' hall table begins to drift through the door, along with the smell of broiled kidneys and sausages, and Phyllis looks at her wristwatch, realising their half-hour is nearly up already. Rare coins and silver boxes are all very well and good, but in this house, she sometimes thinks time is the most precious commodity.

"I don't think the bones are buried," she says. "Edwin stayed very near to his body at the lake. If any part of it is here now, it's in the same place where he is."

"The attic," Molesley says.

"The attic," Phyllis confirms, as the bell rings to call them to breakfast.


	29. Chapter 29

Phyllis spends breakfast time thinking about the problem of how to search the attic, and concludes that if she and Molesley go haphazardly poking into the hundreds of trunks and boxes it holds, they could be at it until both of them are dead of old age. The first thing to do, she thinks, is to have a look at the space in full daylight, without relying on torches and electric bulbs that may or may not be working. Not wanting to encounter Edwin's ghost just at the moment, she asks Anna to go up with her, on the not-completely-false pretext that she needs help packing away some of her Ladyship's out-of-season dresses that were missed earlier in the autumn, and Anna agrees at once.

"Lady Mary's got a few things that need to go as well," she says, "and it'll be nicer doing it with company. That attic's a spooky old place, if you ask me."

Phyllis thinks that truer words were never spoken, but manages a smile and goes off to collect the dresses, which have already been aired and brushed and folded in paper in preparation for their months in storage. She meets Anna at the foot of the attic stairs and they climb up together, Anna talking cheerfully about the upcoming holiday and the new scarf she's been knitting as a present for Mr Bates. The sight of the white-panelled door gives Phyllis a twinge of anxiety—what if the ghost thinks she has brought someone to disturb him?—but Anna reaches for the knob without a moment's hesitation and pushes the door open.

It's been so long since Phyllis set foot in the attic during the day that at first she feels she's come to the wrong place. All the familiar shapes of furniture and heaps of boxes are there, but with the clean morning light pouring in through the windows on the far wall, they look smaller and more ordinary, not at all the shadowy, ominous hulks that have menaced her on her last few visits. She stands frozen in the doorway, clutching her stack of soft parcels filled with fine silk and linen, until Anna breaks the spell with a laugh and says, "Well, come on, Miss Baxter, these things won't put themselves away, will they?"

"No, I suppose they won't," Phyllis says. She steps in and has a quick glance around, immediately spotting the area where the ghost appears most often, tucked away behind the heavy sheet-covered wardrobe. If she looked inside, would Reggie's canvas bag be resting there, still protecting the fragile dry bones after all these years? It seems too easy a solution, and she's not even certain the wardrobe is old enough to have been there since Reggie and Edwin's time, but she supposes it's the first place to look. She's tempted simply to fling the doors open now, but can't think how she would explain it to Anna, who is on her knees in front of one of Lady Mary's trunks.

"It's hard to believe we'll be taking it all out again soon enough," Anna says, tucking in a final bundle and smoothing a layer of clean newspaper over the top . "When it's cold and snowy like this, I feel as if spring will never come again, don't you?"

"Yes," Phyllis says fervently.

"But it always does, so we've just got to wait for it." Anna stands up and brushes her hands together briskly. "Ugh, it's filthy up here. When I was a housemaid, we always came up to dust and sweep the floors during spring cleaning. I don't know what those girls are doing with their time these days." She giggles. "I'm starting to sound like Mrs Hughes, aren't I? Here, let me help you with those."

They lay the dresses away together, and then Phyllis closes and latches Lady Grantham's trunk. She's still looking around surreptitiously, wondering where Edwin is and what he makes of their presence in the attic. Now that she's mostly overcome her fear of seeing him, she finds it bothers her almost as much when she can't. She's on edge, waiting for the sounds and sensations that herald his appearance, but nothing happens, and she and Anna finish their work and leave without incident.

In the servants' corridor, she thanks Anna sincerely for going with her, and Anna says that it made a pleasant break in the day, and she was glad to do it.

"And it's good to see you're looking better rested, if you don't mind me saying so," she adds with a smile. "Did you try that sleeping powder?"

"I did," Phyllis says, thinking a bit guiltily of the bottle that went unused last night. "It works beautifully."

"I thought it would," Anna says. "It did Lady Mary so much good when Mr Matthew died. She was waking up every night, screaming as if she'd seen his ghost."

Phyllis is certain this is just a figure of speech, but it gives her a nasty turn anyway. She thanks Anna again and hurries off to see if Lady Grantham is ready to change for lunch, trying not to dwell on the possibility that the house is absolutely stuffed with spirits she hasn't yet seen. She's managed to hold onto her sanity in the face of many trials, but that, she thinks, would be the final straw.

She dresses Cora for the afternoon and then catches Mr Molesley in the long corridor where the downstairs storage rooms are, pulling him into the nearest unlocked one before he can do more than say her name in greeting. It's a tiny, cramped space lined with shelves on three sides, and there's barely room for the two of them to stand face to face without touching, but Phyllis is too intent on her mission to give it much thought.

"I'm going up tonight to look," she says. "For the box, but for the bones as well, if I can find them. Will you come? You don't have to—you've already done more than enough—but it would be such a help."

"Of course I'll come if you want me."

"I want you," Phyllis says firmly, and for once he doesn't blush or stammer, but gives a single, resolute nod of assent. "We'll do it the same way as before. Two o'clock, and I'll unlock the door for you."

"What if the ghost tries to—you know?"

"He won't if I ask him not to," Phyllis says. "We've got an understanding now, he and I. You'll see."

With the humiliating oversleeping incident still fresh in her memory (and, she has no doubt, in Mrs Hughes' memory as well), this time she tries to get some rest during the hours between when she retires to her room and when she ventures out for her rendezvous with Molesley. She daren't take any of the sleeping powder for fear she will sleep right through their meeting time, but she does manage a restless doze, from which she wakes with a gasp when the wind-up alarm clock goes off under her pillow. She sits on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, head between her hands, and when she feels she can function properly, slips out to unlock the connecting door. Molesley is already there, waiting at the other side, and she feels a nervous, excited flutter in her stomach as she turns the key, as if she really is letting him in for the sort of carnal purposes that the door is meant to thwart.

 _I wish I were_ , she thinks, as she climbs the stairs just ahead of him. _It would be simpler._

She's come armed with Daisy's torch again, and it turns out to have been a good decision: when she tries the pull cord, the overhead bulbs remain cold and dark. Molesley comes up beside her as she switches the torch on and takes it from her hand, keeping the beam low.

"Where should we start?"

"I think over there." She nods in the direction of the wardrobe. "That's where I saw him the first time, when he said he was looking for his name."

They thread their way through the stacks—Molesley twisting and turning to fit his taller body through some of the narrow places—and find that the wardrobe doors are blocked by a huge, flat-lidded trunk fit for a months-long trip across the Continent. Phyllis tugs at one end and finds she can't begin to shift it, so Molesley puts down the torch and helps her, both of them straining to slide it even a few feet across the boards.

"We had better look in this first," Molesley says, out of breath. "It's heavy enough for ten bodies."

"We're not looking for a body, Mr Molesley, only bones," Phyllis says, but she kneels and unclasps the latches, heaving back the lid to reveal books stacked deep and wedged in at the sides. She pulls out enough of them to be sure that nothing is hidden underneath, then piles them back in and turns to the wardrobe. Though she doesn't like to admit it, this one frightens her; she can't stop imagining a clattering hail of bones, or something even worse, falling out on top of them both when the doors are opened.

"We'll do it together," she says to Molesley, who looks tense and hollow-cheeked, his mild features thrown into sharp relief by the light from the torch. "Each take a side and count three."

The hinges are frozen with age, and it's a struggle that showers the floor with powdery, clumpy rust, but reluctantly they give way, revealing heaps of stiff, moth-eaten clothing in the style of forty years ago. Molesley rifles through it, pulling a disgusted face at the smell of dust and mould, and then opens the drawers in the bottom to check there too, finding only a collection of old hats and shoes.

"Nothing here either," he says. "What now?"

"We'll have to start looking into the boxes all around." Phyllis puts her hands on her hips and blows a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. "But one at a time, and we've got to put things back as we go, otherwise we'll be left with a mess too big to tidy up. I don't think anyone will notice if things have been moved a bit, but they will if it looks as if they've been searched through."

"We ought to mark them somehow too, oughtn't we?" Molesley digs into his trouser pockets and pulls out a pencil stub she recognises from the day she first drew the coin. "Otherwise we'll waste time looking in the same ones over and over."

"That's a very good idea," Phyllis says warmly, and Molesley grins, pleased at the praise.

"We can put a cross on each one, just lightly so we can rub it out later if we want to. If we do it in the same spot on each one..." He breaks off suddenly, alarming Phyllis, who touches his arm in concern.

"What's the matter, Mr Molesley?"

"I thought I heard something."

Phyllis starts to ask what it was, but before she can get the words out, she hears it too. It's the sound of the ghost.


	30. Chapter 30

The ghost manifests more quickly than Phyllis is expecting, coalescing out of the air in a rush of energy that leaves her breathless and shaking with its suddenness. She feels Mr Molesley's hands on either side of her waist, pulling her backward out of its path, until they're both standing as far from the wardrobe as they can get without toppling over a trunk or crate. Molesley draws her closer to him, so her back is pressed against his chest, and she lets him do it, less because she needs protection than because she feels he will be safer this way. She doesn't think the ghost will try to harm her, not now, but he may see someone else as a threat.

"Edwin," she says softly.

He turns to her, features flickering, trying and failing to hold the shape of a face.

"This is my friend, the one I told you about. He's helping me, so you mustn't hurt him or frighten him." She isn't certain she can exact a promise from the ghost, even though he has demanded so many from her, and hopes this admonition will be enough. Electricity crackles along her arms, and looking down, she sees bright blue sparks popping and fizzing on Molesley's bare hands as well. He winces with each new flash, but keeps holding on to her.

"Be careful," she warns the ghost. "Remember we're alive. You don't want the same thing that happened to you to happen to us, do you?"

There's no response, but the thrumming, burning sensation eases, and Phyllis relaxes a little.

"That's good," she says. "Now listen. We're here because we're looking for the box. I saw Reggie with it, in my dream. He came back for you, Edwin. It took a long time, but he came back to collect the box and your bones, and he brought them to Downton. I don't know exactly where they are, but they're here somewhere, and we'll find them."

The ghost brightens and extends its upper half toward her, stretching out long tentacles of light and heat, and Molesley makes a strangled, horrified noise in his throat and pulls her in tighter, wrapping his arms all the way round her like a shield.

"I think it's all right," she says. "He's not trying to attack us. He wants to say something." She addresses the ghost directly. "Can you without hurting me? Am I healed enough?"

"No, no, don't." Molesley's voice is a desperate whisper. "What if it lies to you and says it can when it can't?"

"He's never lied to me yet," Phyllis says. "And we haven't got another choice, unless he'll talk to you instead."

"Me!" She feels a long shudder run through Molesley's body. "I wouldn't be any good. I wouldn't know what to say to it. I—" He stumbles, flounders, and then gathers courage. "I—I'll try if you need me to. It frightens me half to death—I won't pretend it doesn't—but I can't bear for it to hurt you again."

"Can you talk to Mr Molesley?" Phyllis asks the ghost. "Get inside him, the way you've done with me?"

The ghost floats closer, seeming to consider this, and Phyllis extracts herself from Molesley's embrace and moves aside a little so man and spirit can stand face to face. Up close, she can see the swirling patterns of energy inside the ghost's form, creating the glow that emanates from within. That glow falls across Molesley's face and shows her that his eyes are screwed shut, his jaw set rigidly as he forces himself to stand still and let the ghost investigate him. She doesn't blame him in the slightest for being afraid, remembering how she'd felt the first time. The edge of the ghost's substance brushes against his arm, and he gasps, but it's the ghost who pulls away first, dimming as if in disappointment.

"It can't," Phyllis says. "Or won't, but I think it's the former. It'll have to be me."

It hurts as much as ever, but the deep, bruised sensation of the last time is gone; whatever damage she suffered has repaired itself. She wishes she could reassure Molesley that she is all right, but she can't find the strength for anything but enduring the pain and thinking what she needs to say next. The best she can do is to keep her voice as even as possible, so as not to worry him, but it's difficult because Edwin is very agitated.

 _REGGIE REGGIE TOOK ME HE TOOK ME AWAY REGGIE CAME AND TOOK ME AWAY_

"I know."

 _HE TOOK ME TO THAT MAN REGGIE HE DID IT_

"What?" Phyllis sucks in a sharp breath as the ghost makes a sudden movement. "I haven't seen that part yet. What man?"

 _THAT MAN_

"Tell me with better words, Edwin. I want to understand, but I can't when you talk this way."

He's trying, she thinks. She can feel him settling, reining himself in.

 _Reggie took me from the lake shore. I remember when he came. He took me away and I was changed._

"What do you mean, changed?" Phyllis asks.

 _I was different than I had been. I don't know how. He took me to a man who changed me. I cannot remember._

"Do you remember where he put the box? Or your bones?"

 _No._

"Do you know what he did with the coin?"

 _The coin?_

"An old, rare Roman coin. The box was full of them, and they were all lost but one."

 _We found the box. Reggie and I._ The ghost speaks slowly, feeling his way, as if the memory is unspooling further with each word. We _were exploring and I found an opening in the side of a hill, almost a cave. Reggie wouldn't go in, but I wanted to see. I had to crawl. The box was at the back, wrapped in a length of old purple cloth that was falling to bits. We both knew it was important because of that._

"And you could read the inscription?"

 _Reggie could. He was always better at his lessons. At the next big town we asked about it and learnt what a treasure we had found. Nothing was the same between us after that._ He sounds both sad and infinitely weary, and Phyllis feels a sob catch in her throat.

"Do you remember anything else?"

 _No. But you are right. The box is here. I am here. I feel it now. You must find it._

"Miss Baxter," Molesley's voice comes to her dull and muffled, as if by the essence of the ghost that fills her. "It's getting too hot. You'll be burnt."

"I'm all right, Mr Molesley," she says, but she knows he is speaking the truth; she can't tolerate much more. The ghost seems to know it too, and departs without another word, melting away and leaving her weak with exhaustion and relief. This time Molesley is right there behind her to support her as she sways, with one arm around her waist and the other across her chest, and she sinks back, her eyes closing as her head settles into the hollow of his shoulder.

"What can I do? Do you need to lie down?"

"No—but if I could sit somewhere—"

"Of course." He turns her around, lowers her gently onto the trunk they worked so hard to move, and then sits beside her, still with an arm behind her back to keep her upright.

"He said—"

"It's all right, you don't have to tell me this instant. Catch your breath first."

"No, I want to." Phyllis clasps her hands in her lap and tries to focus her thoughts, to remember exactly what the ghost said and in what order he said it.

"Changed how?" Molesley asks when she tells him.

"I don't know. Neither did he. Just changed somehow." She knows she shouldn't, but she lets herself lean against him again, just a little. He is so warm, not with the ghost's crackling heat that burns and aches down to the bone, but with real, living human warmth. "And he says the box is here."

"Did he say why the box is so important?"

"No, only that we've got to find it."

"Well, we knew that, and we're not going to get any farther with it tonight." Molesley takes her wrist delicately between his thumb and forefinger, turns it over and squints at the face of her watch in the dim light. "It's nearly four in the morning and we've just about run through another set of batteries. We'll have to tidy up what we've done and come back tomorrow."

"I'll help—"

"No, you sit here. You've done more than your share already. I can finish this."

Phyllis would like to argue, but he's right; she can barely move. She watches as he quickly packs the rotting old clothes back into the wardrobe, forces the doors closed again and then bends down to blow the disturbed fluffs of dust away.

"Do you think it's safe to leave the trunk there?"

She nods. "No one's touched this part of the attic since I've been coming up. I don't think anyone bothers with it."

"Thank goodness for that," Molesley says. "I don't want to move that monstrosity again if I don't have to."

This time she walks all the way to the door in the corridor with him, unlocks it and holds it open for him to go through. The lamps are still low for the evening, but there's enough light for her to see black grime under his nails and dirt smudged across his face from their work, and she feels an involuntary smile tug at the corners of her mouth.

"What's funny?" Molesley's eyebrows draw together in consternation over being laughed at.

"You look like a chimney sweep," she says, under her breath, and he nearly chokes on a laugh of his own.

"Wait until you see yourself in the mirror, Miss Baxter." He reaches out and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "You're awfully brave, you know."

"So are you," she says, and he pulls a face and shakes his head.

"I'm not. That thing scares me silly."

"You've got to be frightened before you can be brave, Mr Molesley," she says, and closes the door between them.


	31. Chapter 31

The short night makes the following day a trial for Phyllis, but more so for Molesley, who has to stand motionless for hours at a time and is in danger of falling asleep on his feet. After upstairs lunch ends, she visits the kitchen to get some salt for rubbing into a stain on one of Lady Grantham's nightdresses, and finds him hunched over a steaming cup of strong black coffee, with the back door wide open and a few snow flurries blowing in on the icy air.

"Mrs Patmore won't like that," she says.

"I've got to keep awake somehow." Molesley looks at her with bleary, red-rimmed eyes. "I don't know how you've managed it for all these weeks."

"Not very well," Phyllis says. "Come outside with me for a few minutes, and you can get the air without mucking up the kitchen floor. We ought to talk anyway, and work out what to do next. Bring the coffee."

He follows her obediently, and they find a sheltered spot beside one of the sheds where they can stand. It isn't so very cold today, despite the occasional swirl of snowflakes, but the wind cuts through their indoor clothes like a blade. Phyllis looks up at the grey sky and remembers Anna in the attic, kneeling in front of Lady Mary's trunk and saying that it seemed as if spring would never come again. Today she feels that fear all the way to the bottom of her soul.

"Any new dreams to report?

"I couldn't sleep after I went back to bed," Phyllis says. "I'm worried we won't find the box. He says it's there, but _where_?"

"All we can do is keep looking and try to be as systematic about it as we can." Molesley sets the delicate coffee cup down carefully on an upturned barrel and touches her shoulder in a gesture of comfort. "We had a plan before it—the ghost—turned up and spoilt it."

"He didn't mean to spoil it," Phyllis says. "He was upset about what he'd remembered, that's all. And as for our plan, it's not a bad one, but we can't go to the attic every night, can we? We've been lucky so far, but sooner or later someone will open their door at the wrong time and we'll be caught, and how will we explain ourselves? What will people think?"

"There's a rhetorical question, if you like," Molesley says. "You know what they'll think."

Phyllis smiles a little. "I do, and I wouldn't—" She falters, not certain how to say what she wants to say without giving him the wrong idea.

"Wouldn't what?"

"Well—I wouldn't be embarrassed about that, not for its own sake. I'd never be ashamed of being associated with you, not in any way. But we'd both be sacked, or if you weren't, I certainly would be. It isn't fair, but that's the way it is."

"It'd be both of us," Molesley says firmly. "If they dismissed you and not me, I'd resign. I've been without work before and found ways to survive; I could do it again if I had to, especially if I knew it was for a good reason."

"That means a great deal to me, Mr Molesley, truly it does, but I think we'll be better served if we avoid the situation altogether." She hugs herself and shivers. "So what shall we do? Go up every second night? Take it in turns to go?"

"You can't go on your own, not to search. That beast of a trunk wasn't the only heavy thing up there, and even the crates are stacked four and five deep in places. How are you going to move all that without help?"

"I suppose I'm not," Phyllis says with a sigh. "Well, we'll risk it again tonight at least, and then see what happens from there. Are you feeling more awake now?"

"Frozen solid's more like it." Molesley drinks the last of his coffee and grimaces because it's gone cold. "But I think I'll be able to get through the rest of the day now. What about you?"

"I'll be fine. Her Ladyship's gone to pay some calls, so I'll have a quiet afternoon. I might even be able to slip upstairs and lie down for a bit, if I tell Mrs Hughes I'm not well. She's been watching me as if I might fall to pieces at any minute for the last few days." She plucks the coffee cup from Molesley's fingers. "I'll take this to the scullery for you. I came down in the first place because I needed something from the kitchen, and I haven't got it yet."

They go back inside and promptly attract a narrow-eyed stare from Thomas, who is on his way through the kitchen with a tray of silver pieces destined for the lockup in Mr Carson's pantry. Molesley separates from her and disappears in the direction of the boot room, and Phyllis proceeds to the scullery with the cup, then returns to the kitchen for the dish of salt she needs. When she's finished treating the stain on the nightdress, she finds Mrs Hughes and gets permission to go up to her room for an hour, and climbs the stairs thinking about everything she knows of Edwin and Reggie's story so far.

As she's opening her bedroom door, it occurs to her that she ought to write it out—not that she's in any danger of forgetting, but perhaps seeing it laid out in black and white will help make sense out of it all. This appeals to her innate sense of order, and so as soon as the door is closed and locked, she fetches her writing box from the bottom of the wardrobe, fills her pen, gets out a clean sheet of paper, and considers for a minute before deciding to begin at the very beginning.

 _ **1795** \- E.C. born_

 _ **1799** \- R.C. born_

 _ **1820** (?) E. and R. set out on journey together (destination unknown; Mr M. senior thinks they were only wandering and exploring)_

 _ **1820** (?) E. and R. find cave in hillside; E. goes in and finds box wrapped in purple cloth, with silver Roman coins inside_

Here she stops briefly, thinking about the box itself. She clearly remembers that in one of her earlier dreams, she saw a silver letter C worked into the green enamelling on its top; she had thought that stood for "Crawley," but if Edwin had found the box, it couldn't have, could it? Did it stand for "Caesar," because of the coins? How is Caesar spelt in Latin anyway? Perhaps Mr Molesley will know.

 _ **1820** (?) E. and R. learn value of coins and quarrel over them. E. is killed in storm on the lake and all coins lost but one. R. hides body and box and takes remaining coin (or does he?)_

 _ **1840** (?) R. comes back and takes body (now bones) and box away. E. says R. then takes him to "a man" who "changes" him somehow. R. brings E. and box back to D.A. and hides them somewhere in attic (?)_

Phyllis pauses again and reads over her work, then draws a precise, careful line across the width of the page and adds another section below it.

 _Where was the cave where E. found the box? Where was the lake?_

 _What did R. do with the coin? Was it sold? Kept? Is it with the box?_

 _Who was the man and how did he change E. (and why)?_

 _Where are the box and E.'s bones now?_

She reads this over as well, tapping the pen thoughtfully on the edge of the writing box, and then writes one more question underneath:

 _What do we do with the box and bones when we find them?_

It's a question that has crossed her mind before, but only in passing; she's been so focused on the act of finding that she hasn't devoted much time to what comes after. _Find the box and I will have peace_ is what Edwin has said, but Edwin's thoughts are often muddled and his whims hard to predict. She doesn't want to triumphantly present him with the box only to be told she must fulfil some other condition as well, in an endless quest that consumes years of her life.

 _Ask E._ , she writes beside this final question, and inks a heavy, black ring round it for emphasis. She blows across the page to dry it and then tucks it back into the writing box, burying it deep between other sheets of paper to keep away prying eyes. As far as she knows, no one ever comes into her room except Julia, who changes all the servants' beds, and it seems unlikely that Julia would take time from her work to poke through someone else's letters (not that Phyllis receives many letters, as her sister is the only member of her family who has written or spoken to her since she went to prison), but the idea is worrying all the same.

She puts the box back into the wardrobe, looks at the clock and sees she still has half an hour left before she is expected downstairs again. It's not long, but perhaps she can at least rest a little. Curling up on her bed, she hugs the pillow to her chest and, soothed by its softness and overcome by her own fatigue, falls asleep almost at once.


	32. Chapter 32

Phyllis isn't expecting to dream in the short time she has to sleep, but a dream comes to her all the same. In it, she's in the midst of an inferno, white-hot fire on every side, her entire body aflame. It's painless, but it terrifies her, and when she opens her mouth to scream, she realises the fire is inside her as well, curling out through her ribs like fingers and licking up the ridge of her spine. She tries to struggle, but she's as strengthless as a bedridden invalid and can do nothing but lie there, burning and burning and burning. She burns, and the whole world burns with her, until she bolts awake, clawing at her throat.

Even in half an hour, the room has dimmed with the oncoming twilight, and she sits up disoriented, sweat dampening the hair at her temples and the back of her neck. She feels feverish and stifled, and with trembling hands she unbuttons the front of her dress and fumbles her way to the washstand to splash water on her face and neck. Her reflection in the mirror is all hot, flushed cheeks and dilated pupils, and she stares at it and wonders what is the matter with her. The details of the dream are slipping away; when she tries to remember the last thing that happened before she woke, there is only a vague impression of unbearable light and heat, like the volcanic eruption she saw recently in a newsreel at the pictures.

Slowly, the cold water does its work, and she feels composed enough to go downstairs again, arriving only a little later than she told Mrs Hughes she would be. Lady Grantham isn't home from her rounds of visiting yet, and the servants' hall table is already laid for the meal they'll be eating soon, leaving her at loose ends with no one to wait on and no place to spread out her sewing. She puts on a coat and wanders outside instead—still feeling dazed and strange from having slept at an odd hour—and walks around the side of the house until she can see the barn, and the attached storeroom where she first told Mr Molesley the truth about the ghost. So much has happened since then, and yet she isn't sure they've made much real progress at all. Everything would be easier, she thinks, if she could just stumble upon a marker that says "here lies Edwin Crawley," a wooden cross or a snow-crusted stone faded and worn away with age and the elements. It all happened such a long time ago, after all, when even the great-grandmother she has never met was only a little girl.

Something about that idea sparks a flicker of an idea at the back of her mind, but it's gone again before she can catch hold of it, and full darkness is falling too fast for her to stay out here on her own much longer. She turns and goes back inside, into the snug and well-lit hall, where she finds Mr Molesley waiting for her beside the fire.

"I've got to go and help Mr Carson decant the wines soon, but I wanted to talk to you first. Have you got a moment?"

Phyllis eyes the leaping flames in the fireplace uneasily. "Yes, but can we move a bit farther from the fire?"

"Of course, if you want to, but why? Has something happened?"

"No, no. I did have a dream, but—I don't think it meant anything. It was very different to the others." She draws him aside, into the opposite corner to the fire, and lowers her voice. "What time shall we go up tonight? I thought we might try later, so we can get most of a night's sleep first. As long as we're back in our rooms by five, when Julia gets up to light the fires, it should be all right."

"I think that's a good idea. And I'll get hold of a couple of the torches Mr Carson keeps for emergencies, so you don't have to keep asking Daisy for hers. She's a clever girl and she'll start to get suspicious soon, if she hasn't already."

"You're probably right," Phyllis says, smiling. "I've told her I'm reading a good book and I don't want Mrs Hughes to see my bedside lamp on late at night, but she probably thinks I'm sending signals to spies through my bedroom window. I'm sure we'll be better off with the emergency torches."

"With any luck, we'll find what we're looking for tonight," Molelsey says, "and then we won't need them again."

"I hope you're right," Phyllis says, just as Mr Carson pops his head into the hall.

"Will you be assisting me with the wines at all this evening, Mr Molesley, or must I do everything myself?"

"Coming, Mr Carson." Molesley makes a mock-agonised face at Phyllis behind the butler's departing back and rushes off, adjusting his cuffs and tie before Mr Carson can see them and disapprove.

For the rest of the evening Phyllis tries to treat herself a little carefully, as if she is convalescing from an illness, with the hope of gathering strength for the work that awaits her later. She conscientiously finishes all of her dinner, does some work on a half-completed embroidery project, and then as soon as she's finished settling Lady Grantham—who, thank goodness, wants an early night after her busy day—goes up to the servants' bathroom to have a long, quiet bath before other people begin coming up with the same idea.

Back in her room, freshly washed, brushed and dressed for sleep, she takes out her sheet of writing again and perches on the edge of her bed to look at it, tracing the names and dates with a fingertip. There's something she's missing, she's sure of it; something that should be very simple if she could only see what it is. Finally she gives up, returns the page to its hiding place, sets her clock for three in the morning and tucks it under her pillow to muffle the noise.

 _Please, no dreams this time_ , she thinks as she switches off the lamp and settles down. _I can't bear another one just yet._

She's not certain whether someone or something hears her plea, or whether she is too deeply unconscious for a dream to penetrate, but whatever the reason, she sleeps undisturbed until the clock's rattle wakes her in the pre-dawn darkness. She pins up her hair and dresses quickly in the lamplight—not in the working uniform she needs to keep clean for the day ahead, but in an old skirt and wool pullover that can stand up to the attic's dust and grime—and goes out to meet Molesley, who is waiting at the connecting door with the promised emergency torches in hand. In the attic they switch them on, and Molesley pulls a half-used lump of white chalk out of his pocket to show her.

"I thought we could wipe it away more easily than pencil marks if we need to," he says. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I can be," Phyllis says. "Are you?"

He nods, though he looks pale and nervous, as if he's expecting something to leap out at them any moment, which Phyllis expects he likely is after their recent experience.

"Where do you think it is?" He glances around as if he's attempting to be casual about it, but utterly failing. "The ghost, I mean."

"I'm not sure." Phyllis pauses, searching for any sign that Edwin's ghost might be nearby, but hears and feels nothing: the attic is as still and silent as the grave, which is perhaps a bit too apt a comparison for comfort. "Sometimes he doesn't come. I think it's best if he doesn't just now, anyway. We'll work faster on our own. Come on."

They squeeze their way through to the part of the attic they mean to search, and find it undisturbed from the previous night, confirming her suspicion that no one ever comes here. Kneeling, Molesley lifts the lid on the first trunk, and Phyllis pulls out the layer of newspaper on top and sets it aside. Underneath is a jumble of items that appear to have belonged to a lady: fans, feathers from hats, theatre programmes, a bouquet of dried flowers, empty perfume bottles with a faded floral scent still clinging to them. She turns over one of the programmes, sees it is for a production of _HMS Pinafore_ , dated 1876, and feels a wave of wistfulness at the thought of how some former lady's maid, now very old or dead, must have packed these things carefully away on behalf of her mistress. One day, she supposes, someone will come up here and discover the evidence of her own work, forgotten and covered in dust.

"Nothing here," she says, and latches the trunk again before she can get too sentimental. Molesley marks a small, unobtrusive cross on its front with his piece of chalk, and together they push it to one side before moving on to the next one.

They go through six trunks and three wooden crates in this way, uncovering books, children's toys, table linens, glassware; all ordinary possessions and nothing to do with Edwin or Reginald Crawley. Phyllis has just inspected a trunk full of old-fashioned baby dresses, frothing with yellowed lace, and is turning around to get the chalk for marking it when she catches Molesley with his torch aimed at one of the newspapers.

"What are you doing?"

"Just looking at a story about the London fog that killed all those people, back in the eighties. I was only a boy then—I'd just started going to school—but I remember my mum and dad reading the papers and talking about it." He crumples up the newspaper and leans over her to stuff it back into the trunk. "Sorry. I didn't mean to get distracted. I know we haven't got all night."

"That's all right." Phyllis takes the chalk from him and starts to mark the trunk, but pauses as that faint idea pushes at her again. Something about the length of time that has passed, the years on her sheet of paper—

"What's the matter?"

"I think," she says slowly, working it out as she speaks, "I think we may have been going about this the wrong way."

"How do you mean?"

"We haven't thought about time," she says. "Edwin and Reggie left on their journey a hundred years ago, didn't they? And even if another twenty years passed before Reggie brought his body home, that's still eighty years."

"Yes, and?"

"Well, none of these things are anything like that old. Everything with a date on it is less than fifty years old, and so were the clothes we found in the wardrobe when we opened it last night. Even the children's dolls in that green trunk full of toys are dressed like the ones my sister and I played with when we were small, only much finer and more expensive, of course. What I mean to say is, if Reginald hid his brother's bones in this part of the attic eighty or ninety years ago, and the trunks and boxes are all decades newer than that, then the bones _can't_ be in any of them, can they?"

Molesley's face in the torchlight is startled. "I hadn't thought of that, but you're right, they can't. But if they're not in a trunk or a box, or inside a piece of furniture, then where are they?"

"I don't know," Phyllis says, frustrated. "There's nothing else but the attic itself. Up in the rafters, or the walls, or..."

"Under the floor," Molesley says.


	33. Chapter 33

"Do you think?" Phyllis looks at Molesley, full of hope.

"It makes the most sense. If the bones were hidden up above, they'd likely have been found by some labourer before now, the roof's been repaired so many times, and someone would have noticed if there'd been a hole cut in the wall and plastered over. Prising up the floorboards, though; that would be easy enough, and all you'd have to do is nail them down again after. I had a secret hiding place like that under my bed when I was a boy, for sweets and things."

"How can we know where, though? We can't pull up the whole floor." Phyllis holds her watch under the light and checks the time. "We've only got a bit less than an hour before people start waking up. What can we do before then?"

"Well, we can begin by looking for hollow places and loose boards. We'll start at the wardrobe and work our way back from there."

"All right."

They lay the two torches down on their sides, with the twin beams pointing forward like the headlamps of a car, and on hands and knees begin testing the floor. It's filthy with dust and grit, and within a few minutes Phyllis has a half-dozen painful slivers from the splintery old wood, but she keeps crawling doggedly, rapping on each board—not too hard, to avoid being heard by anyone below—and listening for anything that sounds different. Her hair has come unpinned, and the end of the long plait keeps falling over her shoulder and needing to be pushed back, giving her a surge of intense envy for the new short, modern haircuts in magazines. If she had her sewing scissors, she thinks, she would chop it all off right now and face the consequences later.

When they reach the end of their cleared area with no success, Molesley stands up with a wince and a hand pressed to the small of his back, then helps Phyllis to her feet too.

"Well, that's that," he says, and then sees the disappointment on her face and backtracks hastily. "Or perhaps not. It could still be under one of these heaps of boxes. We can move things out of the way and keep checking."

"I don't think it is," Phyllis says distractedly. She's looking around, remembering all the times she's seen the ghost in this part of the attic, from that first terrifying encounter to last night. "I think it's right here. It has to be. It—"

"What?"

"Underneath the wardrobe," she says, pointing. "We haven't checked there."

Denuded of its protective sheet, the wardrobe crouches in front of them on four short, curved legs, the carved doves over its doors staring down at her and Molesley with blank eyes. There's perhaps a foot of empty black space beneath it, but whether secrets are hidden in that darkness or not, Phyllis can't say.

"We can't possibly move that thing," Molesley says, eyeing it. "It's seven feet tall and solid oak, it must weigh hundreds of pounds. It would take a crew of men to do it."

"I'll crawl under," Phyllis says. "I'm small enough, I think. At the very least I can reach in and feel the boards, and if there's nothing there, then we'll know for certain."

She goes down on her knees again and finds there's just enough clearance for her to wriggle her head and shoulders into the gap between the wardrobe's underside and the floor. It's dark and tight and more than a bit like being buried alive, but she ignores that as best she can and raps on the boards one by one, until the fourth board gives back a hollow-sounding noise that nearly stops her breathing.

"Can I have some light?" she calls back to Molesley, who obligingly points one of the torches into the gap, illuminating the floor and the thick coating of dust and cobwebs that has seeped underneath the drop cloth and accumulated there over the years. Phyllis sweeps the mess aside with one arm—there's no use worrying about her clothes, which are likely spoilt for good at this point—and uncovers a slightly warped board that moves a little when she touches it, like a loose tooth in a socket. The rusted nails at each of its four corners look as if they've been there since the invention of iron.

"Help me," she says, muffled. "How do I pull it up?"

"Hang on." She can hear Molesley fumbling with something behind her, and then he slides a heavy pocketknife under the wardrobe, handle first, with the largest blade opened. "Wedge it into the gap and use it to prise at the board. Try to keep it pointed away from your face in case the blade breaks. I don't think it will, but better safe than sorry."

It's an awkward angle, but Phyllis manages to sink the first inch or so of the blade into the join on the board's long right side and lever with it. The board rocks harder as the nails slowly pull away from their moorings, and with a final effort, she drags them out far enough to put down the knife and pull with her hands instead, until the board comes off completely, revealing a rectangular hole underneath. It smells of age and must and mouse droppings, and she doesn't want to reach inside for fear the mice or something worse will still be there, but clenches her teeth and does it anyway.

"I can feel something." Her fingers just brush along a cold, smooth edge that could be either metal or glass. "It's a box."

" _The_ box? Reginald's one?"

"I don't know." Phyllis stretches further forward, joints popping, muscles and tendons trembling and strained to their limits. "I think I can get it if I just..." Flattening herself to the floor, she turns her head to one side and drags herself a fraction closer, grimacing as the decorative scrollwork on the wardrobe's lower edge scrapes its way up her back. She gropes blindly in the hole, feels the lower edge of the box come up, and pushes her hand underneath before it can fall back again. It starts to slide, and she's terrified for an instant that it will slip further underneath the floor until it's completely out of reach, but then it fetches up against something solid and she's able to lift it, with fingers that are cramping under the weight.

"I'm coming out," she says, and Molesley moves back to give her room. The light from the torch goes with him, but Phyllis doesn't care: she squirms backward, pulling her prize with her, and sits up with it clasped to her chest. Her eyes are overflowing with tears and she can't see through them, but she has done this before, felt this same shape in her arms and against her heart, and she doesn't have to look at it to know what it is.

"What's the matter?" Molesley is crouching in front of her, trying to dry her face with the back of one hand, but the tears are falling too fast for him to keep up. "Is it wrong?"

"No," she says through sobs. "It's right. Look."

She lets the box roll into her lap. The silver C is black with tarnish, but still visible against the alternating light and dark green squares of enamelling, and she touches it gently, reverently with a fingertip.

"It's real, Mr Molesley," she says. "I dreamt it, but it's really, truly real. I thought it was, but I was never certain until now."

"Should we open it?" Molesley asks. "The last coin could be inside."

Phyllis bites her lip and tries to stop crying, with partial success. "I don't think so. We'd hear it rattling."

"Well, let's have a look. What's the time?"

"Almost five. We haven't got long." She sets the box down on the bare floor between them. "You open it. I don't think I can."

"Here, hold onto this." Molesley passes her his torch, still switched on, though beginning to dim as its batteries wear down, and pulls gingerly at the box's lid before discovering that it swings to the side. The hidden hinge resists moving at first, stiff and balky from years of disuse, but it yields and he is able to push the lid fully open.

"It's ashes," he says in confusion, tipping the box a little to show her a double handful of powdery grey stuff inside. "And—ugh—those white bits mixed into it are pieces of bone. I think it's—"

Before he can finish, they both feel the familiar electrical tingle and hum, strong enough to take their breath away, and almost at once the ghost is there, not even bothering to form a humanlike shape, its substance billowing and flashing like its own self-contained storm. It dives at the box, hovers above it for a moment, then rushes toward Phyllis and takes possession of her roughly, without trying to fit itself to the confines of her body.

 _REGGIE TOOK ME TO THE MAN HE CHANGED ME HE PUT ME IN THE BOX_

"Edwin, stop it—

 _HE PUT ME IN THE FIRE HE BURNT ME TO ASHES_

"Stop—"

 _HE DID THAT REGGIE TOLD THE MAN TO DO THAT HE GAVE HIM THE COIN TO DO IT_

"Edwin, please!"

 _HE GAVE HIM THE COIN NOT TO TELL_

She doesn't know whether the ghost takes pity on her after that, or is simply finished saying what he wants to say, but in a blink he is gone and she is left empty again. Molesley has been kneeling across from her during this interlude, frozen like a coney in a hunter's sights, but now he leaps up, grabs hold of her by the upper arms, and lifts her bodily off the floor and onto her feet.

"What—what are you doing?"

"Taking you out of here before it comes back." He's white-faced and shaking as if he's witnessed a road accident. "I thought it was going to kill you. It moved so fast. Can you stand up on your own?"

"Yes," she says, and finds to her surprise that it's the truth. Violent and abrupt as it was, the ghost's brief tenure inside her seems to have left her less affected than usual. "Get the box—we mustn't leave it—"

"Hang on." He lets go of her, scoops up the two electric torches, switches them off and jams them into his pockets, then shuts the lid on the box and tucks it under one arm. "What am I forgetting?"

"There." She points at the open trunk they were examining before turning to the wardrobe, and Molesley shuts the lid and latches it. "That's all. We can go."

Despite their best efforts, it's past five when they get to the bottom of the stairs, and when they slip out into the corridor, Phyllis can see telltale lines of lamplight under Daisy's door as well as Mrs Patmore's, and can hear the pipes groaning in the bathroom as someone fills the bath. They're halfway to the connecting door, walking as fast and as quietly as they can under the circumstances, when the light under Mrs Hughes' door goes on and they hear the sound of a lock being undone. They look at each other in a panic, and then on pure instinct, Phyllis catches hold of Molesley's hand, draws him the few feet down the corridor to her own unlocked bedroom door, opens it, pushes him inside, and shuts them both in.


	34. Chapter 34

Molesley starts to say something, but Phyllis puts a finger over her lips and leans up against the door, trying to hear whatever is happening outside. She can hear the tread of slippers on the polished corridor floor, and then there's a knock that nearly fells her where she stands.

"Miss Baxter?" It's Mrs Hughes' voice. "Is everything all right?"

Phyllis takes a step back before answering so it won't sound as if she's been listening at the door, which of course she has. "Quite all right, Mrs Hughes."

"Only I thought I heard your door slam."

"I did open it and close it again a little while ago," Phyllis says. "I'm very sorry if it made too much noise."

There's a brief pause, and then Mrs Hughes says, "For goodness' sake, Miss Baxter, can we have this conversation face to face? I don't want to stand here in the corridor shouting before dawn."

Phyllis glances at Molesley, who is still clasping the silver-green box and appears to be having a silent breakdown, his eyes bulging with horror and his face streaked with an unsavoury mixture of sweat and attic dirt. She looks down at her own filthy clothes and realises she's in no better state herself.

"Just a moment, Mrs Hughes, I'm not decent."

She makes an urgent _turn around_ gesture, and obediently Molesley faces the corner behind the door, as if he's a schoolboy being punished for talking out of turn. As soon as he's looking away, she rips her pullover off over her head, tosses it to one side, undoes the buttons on her skirt and kicks that away too. In slip and stockings and underclothes, she's far from naked, but still feels terribly exposed as she snatches her dressing gown from the foot of the bed and wraps it round herself quickly as she can. She grabs a cloth from the washstand, dips it in the water jug, scrubs at her hands and face, and then opens the door just enough to reveal Mrs Hughes, also in her dressing gown, looking sleepy and mildly aggravated.

"I'm sorry. I was just having a wash."

"It looks as if you needed it," Mrs Hughes observes. "There's dust in your hair."

"I dropped something on the floor and it rolled under the bed," Phyllis says. "I had to crawl underneath to get it out." She senses Molesley near her, just out of sight behind the door, and fights the urge to steal a sidelong glance at him, which she knows will only make her look suspicious. She can't, however, stop her hands from going up automatically to smooth her hair, now coming unravelled from its plait as well as having cast off its pins.

"Did you?" Mrs Hughes makes a tutting noise. "The housemaids can't be cleaning well enough if it's that dusty under your bed. I'll speak to them later."

"That's all right," Phyllis says hastily. "I'll do it myself. I know how busy they are."

"You needn't do their work for them, Miss Baxter," Mrs Hughes says, and Phyllis has the feeling that the housekeeper's keen blue eyes are boring right through to her soul and cataloguing every single spot of wickedness on it, all the way back to her childhood. "But if you insist, that would be kind. Anyway, I only wanted to be sure you were all right. You haven't been well lately, and I do worry. I'll see you downstairs at breakfast."

"Yes, of course." Phyllis manages a smile, and Mrs Hughes carries on toward whatever her original destination had been. As she goes, Phyllis looks past her at the frosted glass window in the connecting door and sees the shadowy shapes of men already moving about at their end of the corridor. It makes her despair of ever returning Molesley to his own side without being caught.

She retreats back into the room and fastens the lock, then turns to find Molesley still standing there, holding the box and looking uncomfortable and awkward. He's scarlet with embarrassment, and she pats his arm to console him.

"It's all right, Mr Molesley." She whispers it, not wanting anyone passing by to hear a conversation going on. "You'll just have to stay a little while, that's all. I'm sure we can find a way for you to slip out after people start going down for breakfast."

"I thought I was going to die when she knocked on the door."

"So did I." Phyllis takes the box from him and goes to sit on her bed and inspect it. The deep emerald and shimmering sea-green colours she remembers are dull with dirt and time, but with a little rubbing up, she thinks it will gleam under the lamplight just as beautifully as it did in her dream. The coins inside may have been the ultimate treasure, but the box is a precious object all on its own. She remembers Edwin clutching it as he struggled in the lake, the terror of losing it almost as great as the fear of the deep water, and shivers at the realisation that in the end it has become his coffin. There is something both poetic and horrible about Reggie's decision to put him there.

She opens the lid of the box again and regards the sad, scant heap of ash inside. It doesn't seem like much to represent an entire person, and she says so to Molesley.

"Well, he was only bones by then, remember. There wasn't a lot to burn." Molesley hovers, as if not certain he's allowed, then sits down beside her, shoulder to shoulder, and looks into the box as well. "I wonder what 'man' did it? It takes an awfully hot fire to burn bone, you can't just throw it into an ordinary fireplace and expect anything to happen. Back in the old days, people knew how to build funeral pyres that would get the job done, but I doubt Reggie bumped into a Druid or a Viking on his travels."

"After all we've been through, it wouldn't surprise me," Phyllis says. She closes the box and sets it on the bedside table. "Let me see your hands."

"My hands? Why?"

"Just let me see."

He extends them toward her, thick with grime, and she takes them in her own and turns them over to look at the palms. "That attic floor is a menace. Look at the size of this splinter. Does it hurt?"

"I hadn't noticed, but now you mention it, it does rather."

"I had better take it out for you before it works its way in too far. We've got to do something while we wait for everyone to go down, anyway." Molesley pulls a pained face, and she smiles. "Don't worry. A seamstress is the next best thing to a doctor when it comes to this sort of job. I've got a few of my own, so you can return the favour when I've finished, if you like."

She strikes a match, lights a candle and heats one of her good sewing needles in its flame while he washes his hands in the basin, and then he rejoins her and she holds the injured hand under the pool of light from the lamp.

"When I came to your room with Mrs Hughes before," he says, watching her work, "that time when you had fallen—"

"Yes?"

"Well, if someone had told me I'd be here again under these circumstances, I never would have believed it."

"Neither would I." She makes a tiny pinprick in his skin with her needle, just enough to expose the buried end of the sliver, and Molesley twitches. "Don't move. That was the worst bit; I'll have it out in no time now." Delicately, she grasps the sliver with the tips of tweezers and pulls it free, leaving a single ruby-red bead of blood behind on the fleshy part of his palm. "Does that feel better?"

"Lots." He pulls his clean handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs at the little wound, and she drops the bit of wood onto the table, next to the box, and looks up at him.

"I'm so sorry to have dragged you into all this, Mr Molesley," she says. "I don't think I've said it before, but I am. I always seem to be involving you in my messes."

"Don't be sorry. I want to help. What sort of man would I be if I could help and didn't? Especially when it's someone I..."

He drifts to a halt there, and Phyllis takes pity on him and comes to his rescue.

"Someone you care for," she suggests.

"Yes," Molesley says, and seems about to say more, but then to think better of it. "Anyway, what about your hands? I don't think I can use the needle—I'd be afraid of hurting you—but I'll hold them steady while you do it."

Some time later, Phyllis exits her room, dressed in her full working attire, and pulls the door shut behind her, easing it into the frame as not to make a noise that will reach Mrs Hughes' keen ears. The light has disappeared from beneath all the doors at her end of the corridor, and as it is still pitch dark outside, she can only assume the occupants have gone down for their daily dose of porridge. Even so, she walks softly, toe to heel, until she reaches the connecting door and peers through the window. All seems quiet on the men's side, and so she takes the key from its hook, turns it in the lock, replaces it, and goes back to fetch Molesley.

"Is it all right?"

"I think so." Phyllis hesitates, then scoops the box up from the bedside table. "Will you keep this until we know what to do next?"

"Of course, but I thought you would want to keep it. It's almost as if it's yours, isn't it, after everything that's happened?"

"That's just the thing, Mr Molesley, it's _not_ mine, and I don't feel comfortable having it in my room." She holds the box out to him, hoping he will understand. "Please. You could even take it down to your father's house and hide it there, if you wanted to. I just can't have it here."

"All right." He takes it from her and tucks it underneath his jacket. "You can't see it, can you?"

Phyllis shakes her head. "Not at all. And thank you for looking after it. I know you'll keep it safe."

"Supposing the ghost turns up in my room looking for it?"

"I don't think he will," Phyllis says. "He knows we have it, now. He can wait for us to come back." She looks at the clock. "It's nearly seven. We've got to hurry if you're going to have time to dress properly for breakfast."

She checks the corridor one more time, just to be certain, and then beckons him to follow her. At the connecting point, she turns the knob and opens the door for him to go through, and just as he edges past her, a bedroom door further down the men's end opens and Thomas comes out, tucking a pair of gloves into his pocket. He looks up and sees them, framed in the doorway, and his face seizes up in an expression that Phyllis hasn't seen him wear in twenty years—not a curled lip or a sceptically raised eyebrow, but genuine surprise.

"Miss Baxter, what are you doing?" He keeps his voice down when he says it, though Phyllis doesn't know whether this is for her benefit or his own. As he comes further down the corridor toward them, she pushes Molesley the rest of the way through the door, praying that he won't lose hold of the box under his jacket, and steps through it herself.

"I'm letting Mr Molesley through to the men's side," she says, willing her voice to stay steady. "He needs to get ready to go down to breakfast."

"Well, this is unexpected," Thomas seems to be recovering from his shock a bit. "I never thought you'd be so bold about it."

"I told you, Mr Barrow, it isn't what you think. All Mr Molesley and I have been doing is talking."

"In your room, alone."

"Yes."

"And what will you do if I tell Mrs Hughes and Mr Carson about it?"

"Well," Phyllis says, "I suppose then I'll have to tell them both that you've known for a long time and haven't said anything. You did tell me about the room behind the barn where we could meet, didn't you? And you let us in that night after Mr Carson had already locked the back door."

"That would be blackmail, Miss Baxter."

"If anyone would recognise blackmail when he saw it, I'm sure it would be you, Mr Barrow." Phyllis folds her arms defensively across her chest, hoping she doesn't look as sick and shaky as she feels. "I don't like doing it, Thomas. I want us to be friends again, the way we were when we were young, but when you behave this way, what choice do I have?"

"I don't think you're in a position to comment on other people's behaviour at the moment," Thomas says, but he stands aside a little. "Hurry up, Molesley. If you're not down to breakfast in ten minutes, I really will tell everyone what you've been up to."

Molesley pushes past him and goes toward his own bedroom door, fumbling in his trouser pocket for the key, and Thomas leans in closer to Phyllis.

"You're getting braver than I like you to be, Miss Baxter. Just because her Ladyship knows about your past, it doesn't mean she'll forgive everything you do for the rest of your life."

"Maybe not," Phyllis says. "But I trust her more than I trust you. Now if you'll pardon me, I need to lock the door and go down to breakfast as well. I suppose we'll see each other there."

With that, she steps back through the door, closes it in Thomas's face, turns the key in the lock, and bursts into tears.


	35. Chapter 35

Going down to breakfast is an ordeal the likes of which Phyllis has not experienced since her first day in prison. On that occasion, still smarting with the shame of being stripped and inspected and forced into a cold bath by strangers, she'd sat on a hard bench in her thin, grey prison dress and stared through tears at a bowl of equally thin, grey stew, until the woman next to her had leant over, just a fraction, and said in a low voice that she had better try to eat it. _They'll force-feed you if you don't_ , she had said, a prospect that had terrified Phyllis into choking down just enough to escape punishment.

The servants' hall is far from the dark, damp prison, but she feels just as anxious and exposed sitting at the table opposite Thomas, not knowing whether he intends to tell about what he's seen or not. She thinks it was almost certainly an idle threat, made more out of habit than maliciousness, but she can't be sure, and it gnaws at her. She doesn't dare look at him, or at Molesley or Mrs Hughes, leaving her with nowhere to direct her gaze but into her porridge, which at least is better quality than prisoners' fare. The morning conversation swirls around her while she grimly spoons up one mouthful after another, until she's finished and can excuse herself. She goes upstairs to attend to Lady Grantham with her thoughts divided between how to respond if she's accused of impropriety, and what to do about the box and Edwin's ashes, now resting somewhere in Molesley's room.

Just outside her Ladyship's door, she remembers that in their hurry to get the box out of the attic, they left the hole in the boards uncovered and Molesley's pocketknife lying beside it, and for a moment she thinks she will be sick right there on the plush red carpet. Leaning against the wall, she closes her eyes, breathes slowly and tells herself not to be stupid. No one has visited that part of the attic in a long time—the masses of dust and dirt prove it—and even if someone did, the hole and the knife are both underneath the wardrobe, where they won't be seen at first glance. Still, they can't be left as they are: she will have to go up, probably tonight, definitely alone, and take care of them.

With a final deep breath, she squares her shoulders and plasters on a pleasant expression, then taps at the door to announce her entrance. She finds Cora in an odd, distracted mood, and when Phyllis asks if she's all right, Cora starts a little and then says she didn't sleep well the night before.

"I had the strangest dream," she adds. "I don't usually remember them when I wake up, but this one was about a fire, and it was so vivid, I felt as if I were really there, right in the middle of it."

"I don't suppose it means anything, does it, milady?" Phyllis says. She's in the midst of washing Cora's hair, and is grateful that she's kneeling behind the bath where Cora can't see her face. Her hands shake a little, but she keeps pouring warm water from the white china pitcher in a steady stream, rinsing away the soap without getting it in her Ladyship's eyes.

"Oh, I don't think so," Cora says with a light little laugh. "We're always concerned about fire here, you know, because there are so many antiques in the house. Buckets and hosepipes on every floor! I'm sure one day we'll have a sprinkler system fitted, like the ones in theatres, and even then we'll worry. I think that's enough, Baxter, don't you? It takes so long to dry, and I'll have to start dressing soon if I'm to be in time for the luncheon."

"Of course." Phyllis sets the pitcher aside, fetches towels from the warmer and wraps the largest one around Cora as she stands up, dripping.

"Speaking of antiques, how are you getting on with that old book? His Lordship was so pleased that you wanted to read it, I'm surprised he hasn't stopped you in the corridor to ask you himself."

"It's definitely made me see the family in a new light," Phyllis says. "I hope you'll tell his Lordship how grateful I am to have been allowed to borrow it."

"I will." Cora has been waiting to be helped out of the bath—a peculiar quirk of hers that Phyllis has never quite understood—and now she clutches Phyllis's hand tightly, her own hand still hot and damp from the bathwater, and steps over the side and onto the matting. "And don't worry about my dreams, Baxter. They don't mean anything, no matter what that Sigmund Freud says."

"I'm sure you're right, milady."

They leave the subject there and move on to what Cora is going to wear to her luncheon, but it gives Phyllis something additional to fret over as she goes through the motions of her day's work. Is Edwin so upset by the discovery of the box, and by the memories it's awakened in him, that his influence is beginning to spread past her to other people? What will happen if it does? The idea of an entire household driven mad by supernatural dreams sounds so much like an old-fashioned penny dreadful that she can hardly credit it, but then a few months ago she wouldn't have cast herself as the reluctant heroine of a ghost story, either. They will have to help Edwin find peace soon, she thinks, no matter what it takes.

Cora's engagement keeps her away from the house until well into the afternoon, leaving Phyllis with more free time than usual, and in the lull after upstairs lunch, she goes looking for Mr Molesley, who is not to be found in any of his usual daytime haunts. When she runs out of options, she climbs the stairs as far as the doors that lead to the two sides of the servants' corridor, thinking that perhaps he's gone up to check on the box, but there's no sign of him there either.

She's going down again, lost in thought and not really paying attention, when she rounds a corner on the staircase and nearly runs headlong into Thomas. He thrusts out a single stiff arm to avert the collision, and she recoils from him as if he's holding a knife.

"Don't touch me!"

"Why on earth would I want to do that?" Thomas drops the arm, but remains where he is, blocking her progress down the stairs.

"How can I know what you'll do?" Phyllis feels tears encroaching for the third time today and blinks them back furiously. "You were threatening me only this morning."

Thomas's handsome face twists into an expression that she can't read at all—anger? contempt? sadness?—and then he shakes his head.

"Look, Phyl." He breaks off, as if he's as startled by his use of this old childhood name as she is. "Miss Baxter. I don't really intend to tell Carson or Hughes that you had Molesley in your room last night. I did think about doing it, just to teach you a lesson, but I decided not to, and not only because you could turn it around and tell them a thing or two about me."

"Oh? Why else, then?"

"Never mind that. Like I said a few days ago, I don't know what you're playing at, but you need to pull yourself together. I didn't go to all the trouble of bringing you here for you to get yourself dismissed over another idiot footman."

"Mr Molesley is not an idiot," Phyllis says coldly, "and he's nothing like Peter Coyle was. Nothing."

Thomas lets out a short laugh. "You're right about that. I've heard Coyle was handsome, for one thing." Phyllis frowns at him, and he rolls his eyes. "It's a joke, Miss Baxter. Anyway, just remember what I've said and be a bit more careful in future. I actually do believe you've only been talking—it would be just like Molesley to get into your bedroom and then sit there reciting poetry or telling you interesting historical facts until you fell asleep—but no one else will. Go on, and you can tell him I'm not going to peach on you, too, if you like."

"I would if I could find him."

"He's gone down to the village," Thomas says. "Asked Mr Carson for permission and left just after we were finished serving upstairs. I'd have thought he would have told you."

"I was with her Ladyship all morning," Phyllis says. "I haven't seen him since breakfast."

"Well, there you are then. Now I've got work to be getting on with, and I'm sure you do too, so..."

"Of course."

Phyllis is almost giddy with relief at her reprieve, and in that happiness she thanks him sincerely and gives him a warm, genuine smile that makes him look first suspicious, then pleased as he edges past her and continues up the stairs. It's an expression that reminds her of the little-boy Thomas, who would never ask directly if he could join a game, but instead hang around on the edges with a sulky face until someone asked him to play.

For an instant she's tempted to call him back, take him into her confidence, ask what he thinks they ought to do, but then she thinks better of it and goes her own way, hoping Molesley is hurrying on his errand. They have a great deal to talk about, and even more still to do. She only hopes they can get it done before something awful happens.


	36. Chapter 36

Molesley comes back just before dusk, and Phyllis finds him in the boot room and spills out the story of her conversations with Thomas and Lady Grantham.

"So that's one problem sorted," she says, "but now it looks as if we may have another. Did you take the box to your dad's house?"

"I did, but I didn't leave it there. I couldn't find a safe enough place for it, and I was worried something might happen—to the box or to Dad, I'm not certain which. It's up in my room, in a suitcase at the bottom of my wardrobe. Though I can't say I feel all that easy about having it there, either." Molesley puts down a shoe he's polished to a mirror gloss, and starts on the other one in the pair. "Do you really think her Ladyship had the same dream as you?"

"It sounded as if she had, but I couldn't ask too much without making her suspicious. I hope I'm wrong."

"I hope so too." He flushes a little. "I don't mean that the way it sounds. I mean—"

"I know exactly what you mean. But either way, I think we need to hurry and put an end to all this if we can. I've got to go up to the attic tonight—I remembered this morning that I never put the board back or picked up your knife. I can't believe I was so careless."

"Well, we were in a bit of a rush."

"It was still stupid of me," Phyllis says. "And as I'm going anyway, I may as well ask Edwin what more we can do to help him rest. Just finding the box wasn't enough. I was afraid it wouldn't be." Her head is beginning to ache, and she presses her fingers to her temples to soothe it. "The past never wants to let go of anyone, does it? It just holds on forever, even after you're dead."

"You shouldn't go on your own," Molesley says. "I'll come with you."

"No, best not. Mr Barrow won't tell, but we can't risk being caught again by someone else. We've been lucky this far, but it feels as if our luck is running out." Phyllis hears footsteps approaching in the corridor and backs toward the door, preparing to leave. "We've just got to hold on a bit longer, Mr Molesley. It's almost over."

"What's almost over?" Anna asks, appearing from behind her with a basket full of Lady Mary's boots and shoes under one arm and a quizzical half-smile on her face.

"The cold weather," Phyllis says. "I was just telling Mr Molesley that I think the snow won't last much longer."

"I'm surprised it's lasted as long as it has, to tell you the truth," Anna says. She deposits the basket on the long, work-scarred countertop and brushes off her hands. "I don't think it's doing the roof any good, either. There's the oddest smell in the corridor upstairs, where the staff's rooms are—sort of a wet smell, but fresh, not musty like damp. It reminds me of something, but I can't think what it is. Is there another tin of black polish, Mr Molesley?"

Molesley retrieves the tin and passes it to her, and as she takes a shoe from the basket and starts polishing, he and Phyllis exchange a long, worried look over her bowed head. Neither of them says a word, but it's clear they're both thinking of the ghost and the scent of storms it brings when it appears.

"I had better get on," Phyllis says. "I'll see you at dinner, Mr Molesley, Anna."

She leaves them to their work and goes back into the servants' hall, knowing Mrs Patmore will want her to clear away her sewing so Daisy can lay the table. The vague sense of impending doom she had upon hearing about Lady Grantham's dream is back, stronger than ever, and it's an effort to keep a calm face and nod to the people she passes in the corridor. She gathers thread and needles and pincushion into her workbox, folds up the skirt she's been altering—not Cora's this time, but one of her own; she's lost weight without meaning to over these last difficult weeks, and none of her clothes fit properly—and braces herself for the trip upstairs.

Anna isn't wrong about the smell: it's there as soon as she opens the door into the women's side of the corridor, no faint undertone, but strong enough to make her feel as if her throat is coated with it. While she's been downstairs talking with Molesley, the evening has passed from twilight to near dark, with just a hint of bruised purple visible through the window at the end of the corridor, and the wall-mounted lamps are switched on at full strength. She stops in front of one and watches it for a moment, but the bulb burns steadily behind its milky glass shade, and she turns away, her eyes dazzled and her heart still uneasy, and unlocks her door. One way or the other, she thinks, this has to be resolved tonight. Neither she nor Edwin can bear any more.

By the time the staff sit down to dinner, she is feeling less frightened than impatient to go up to the attic and do what has to be done. She takes her place at Mr Carson's left hand, passes down the plates of boiled beef, spoons potatoes onto her own plate, and then applies herself to eating so she can finish and get on with things. She's buttering a slice of bread and half-listening to a conversation between Mr Bates and Mr Molesley when the lights abruptly go out.

Anna lets out a surprised "Oh!" on the other side of the table, and two bells jangle on the board and then fall silent, but other than that, there's no sound for a few seconds as they all sit and wait, breath held, to see if it's a temporary power cut or something more serious. Then Mr Carson's voice rumbles out through the dark: "Well, it seems clear that this unfortunate situation is not immediately to be rectified. All of you stay in your places, if you please, and we will attend to the bells as soon as we have lights in hand. Mr Barrow, come with me."

"Yes, Mr Carson," Thomas says, and Phyllis hears his chair scrape back beside her, followed by the sound of his footsteps and the heavier tread of Carson's as they leave the room in the direction of the butler's pantry.

As soon as they've gone, everyone begins chattering all at once about what's happened and how long it will last. Mr Bates says dryly that he intends to continue with his dinner, as he knows where his mouth is with or without light, and from the kitchen, the sounds of a quarrel between Mrs Patmore and Daisy can be heard as they argue over which drawer has the candles. Surrounded by the racket, Phyllis sits motionless on her own, feeling unmoored from anything familiar and adrift in the dark, and then someone slides into Thomas's empty seat and she feels a hand grope for hers and clasp it.

"It's only me," Molesley says. His voice is closer to her ear than she expects, and she starts a little, but then squeezes his hand in return, grateful for the connection to something warm and solid and real. She would like to keep holding on, but sees a light coming down the corridor and lets go just before Thomas reappears with an electric torch in one hand and a zipped canvas bag in the other. Mrs Patmore and Daisy come in behind him, bearing a pair of thick beeswax candles with their wicks already lit, and set them down at either end of the table.

"Mr Carson's gone up to find Branson," Thomas informs Mrs Hughes, "The two of them will make sure the family are safe and pass out candles to get them through until the power comes back."

"What about the children?"

"Already in bed," Thomas says. "They should be all right until morning, but I'll go up in a moment and look in on them and Nanny, just to be certain."

Mrs Hughes sighs. "Well, we may as well follow Mr Bates' example and finish eating while we can. I suppose it isn't often we have a candlelight dinner like they do upstairs."

"I think it's romantic," Daisy says, and Mrs Patmore rolls her eyes.

"Of course _you_ would. Back to the kitchen, we've still got work to do, power cut or no power cut."

As they disappear down the corridor, Thomas glances at Molesley in his seat and raises an expressive eyebrow, but says nothing. He unzips his bag and hands a torch to Phyllis, who recognises it as one she and Molesley have borrowed recently for an attic expedition. She hopes that someone has replaced the batteries since then. Looking down at her plate, she realises that boiled beef and potatoes have lost any limited appeal they had, and pushes back her chair to get up instead.

"I'm not very hungry anyway. I'll just go up and start readying her Ladyship's room for later."

"You ought to eat, Miss Baxter," Mrs Hughes says gently, from across the table. The soft candlelight has smoothed out the lines in her face and given her a golden glow, until she looks a bit like a religious painting in a museum. "I'm afraid you'll disappear if you get any thinner."

"I'll come down and have some milk later, before I go to bed," Phyllis says, silently adding _if I can_ to the end of the statement. She feels rather like a child bargaining with her mother, and it's a relief when Mrs Hughes gives in and says, "Well, you must do whatever you think is best, of course," before picking up her knife and fork again.

"I'll walk you to the stairs," Molesley says, standing up.

"Oh good Lord." Thomas sounds disgusted. "She's a grown woman, Molesley. She can find the stairs on her own."

"It's all right," Phyllis says hastily. "I'd like the company."

She switches on her torch, relieved to see that the batteries appear fresh, and she and Molesley make their way down the cold, black corridor to the stairs. It seems she can feel the vastness of the entire house above them, all the echoing, high-ceilinged rooms filled with darkness and empty air, and beyond them, the attic where the ghost is waiting, so anguished at what he has remembered that his misery is spilling out in all directions. She is the one who has done this, she thinks; in trying to help him, she has only made things worse. If she had never promised, if she had left the attic on that night and not returned, he might have forgot she existed at all; might have returned to the confused but peaceful state in which he'd existed at the lake shore.

Molesley stops as they reach the bottom of the stairs and turns to face her. "Are you going to be all right? Really all right?"

"I hope so." He looks so anguished that she amends it. "I'm sure I will. He doesn't mean to do what he's doing. He's unhappy, that's all, and unhappy people sometimes can't help behaving badly."

"I could still come with you. It's so dark, no one will know—"

"Not this time." She shakes her head. "I'm so grateful that you want to, but I began this on my own and I ought to finish it that way. It's enough to know you're here, wishing me well. That will give me strength."

"When will you do it?"

"As soon as I put her Ladyship to bed. I can't leave her wondering where I am." Phyllis climbs the first two steps. "I'll see you after."

"Mind how you go," Molesley says.

She looks back once, halfway to the first landing, and finds him still standing there and watching. The pale shape of his upturned face is the last thing she sees before she climbs further into the dark.


	37. Chapter 37

The fire in Lady Grantham's bedroom has burnt down, but once Phyllis builds it up again for the night, it casts enough light for her to switch off the torch and go about her work in its rosy glow. She's turned down the bed and laid out her Ladyship's nightdress when Cora herself comes in, carrying a lit candle with her hand cupped round the flame to protect it.

"I thought I might as well come up now," she says. "We haven't got dinner guests, so there's no point forcing ourselves to go through the whole dressing and dining rigmarole, and I'm exhausted anyway. I hope I'm able to sleep tonight."

"I do have a bottle of Veronal powder, milady, if you'd like to try it," Phyllis offers. "Dr Clarkson suggested it when I was having trouble sleeping recently."

"Did he? Does it work?" Cora sets the candle on her dressing table, sits down, and peers into the mirror, frowning as she touches manicured fingertips to the puffy dark crescents under her eyes.

"Like a charm," Phyllis says. "You feel a bit light-headed in the morning, but it passes. Shall I fetch it for you? It's in my room." She's trying hard not to sound too eager, for fear of rousing suspicion, but the truth is that the task ahead will be much easier if she knows Cora is sound asleep and unlikely to ring for her. She thinks of the fairy tale where the whole castle slept for a thousand years, and imagines herself going around the house, slipping a dose of the powder to everyone from Daisy to Lord Grantham, to keep them out of harm's way until she is finished.

"I'll see how I feel after I'm ready for bed," Cora says. "Gosh, this power cut is an awful nuisance. It's strange how you get used to things, isn't it? We never had electric lights when I was a child, and now it's a disaster if they're out for an evening."

"That's true," says Phyllis, who has clear memories of eating meals and doing her lessons by candlelight in order to save on the gas. "It's the same with everything, I suppose, cars and telephones and the wireless and all."

"Mmm." Cora stands up so Phyllis can unbutton her dress at the back, and then lets it fall to the floor and steps out of the puddled material. "I wonder what someone from a century ago would make of everything we have now."

Phyllis is bending over to pick up the dress, and this comment makes her stay there just an extra half-second before straightening up.

"What made you think of that, milady?"

"It's been on my mind all day, actually," Cora says. "Thinking about the people who lived here in the past, that is. I suppose it's because we talked about his Lordship's book this morning. Do you know, I even thought of sending you up to the attic to look for old photographs from the Crawley side. Most of them are at the Dower House, but I'm sure we have some here too. It's just I only ever look at the ones of my own family."

"Perhaps tomorrow," Phyllis says. She's turned away, smoothing Cora's dress out flat on the bed to be taken downstairs when she finishes here, but her mind is whirring at a thousand miles a minute, wondering if what she's witnessing is another manifestation of Edwin's increasing unhappiness. It hasn't escaped her attention, either, that looking for old photographs in the attic is how this whole ordeal began. She doesn't want to start seeing secret meanings in every coincidence, but this particular coincidence makes her feel colder than the lacework of frost on the windows.

"Yes, perhaps." Cora has shed her layers of undergarments on her own, and now she raises her arms for Phyllis to help with her nightdress. "I think I would like to try that powder of yours after all, Baxter. Would you mind very much going to get it? I can brush my own hair."

"Of course, milady." Phyllis adjusts the nightdress and holds Cora's white satin dressing gown up for her to slip into it. "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"No need to rush," Cora says, taking her seat in front of the mirror again and starting to pluck pins one by one from her hair. "I'm not going anywhere."

It's an abrupt and unpleasant transition from the warm, fire-lit bedroom to the black chill of the corridor, and Phyllis pulls out her torch and switches it on at once, half expecting something—perhaps the ghost, perhaps the devil himself—to come leaping out of the shadows at her before she can complete the action. Further along, she hears a door open and jerks the light up to splash across Thomas, who shields his face with one arm.

"Good Lord, Miss Baxter! Get that out of my eyes before you blind me."

"I'm sorry." Phyllis lowers the light hastily and trains it on the floor instead. "I didn't know it was you."

"Clearly." Thomas switches on his own torch and comes down the corridor to join her, his polished shoes making no sound on the thick rug. As he gets closer, she sees the tense, strained look on his face.

"What's the matter, Mr Barrow?"

"I've just come from the nursery," Thomas says. "Nanny said the children woke up crying almost at the exact moment the power went out. She thought they'd had nightmares, both of them. They're too little to really explain, but she said Miss Sybbie was talking about a big fire. And then, if you can believe it, she told me she'd dozed off earlier herself and dreamt that she was drowning in a lake. What the hell is going on in this house tonight?"

"We've got to get through it, that's all," Phyllis says. "Things will be better in the morning."

"How do you know?" There's something of the small boy about him as he says it, and in the dark she can almost imagine that she is twelve years old again and he is six, and they are telling ghost stories in the dark with the other children, both of them scared silly, but too proud to admit it.

"I just do," she says, and Thomas grimaces.

"Maybe you ought to come back to the hall," he says. "I'm sure it sounds strange, coming from me, but I have a feeling we'll all be better off sticking together, at least until the power's on again."

"I've still got work to do up here," Phyllis says, "but as soon as I can, I will. You'll look after everyone until I get there, won't you?"

"Yes, yes, I'll keep your precious Molesley safe," Thomas says irritably. "I won't let him walk headfirst into a wall or fall down the stairs or whatever else he might get up to."

"Thank you," Phyllis says. "And keep yourself safe as well."

He makes a rude scoffing noise. "As if you care whether I'm safe or not."

"You know that isn't true."

There's a long pause, and then he looks away from her and fiddles with the buttons on his livery. "I suppose I do. Though I can't think why you would. Anyway, that's enough of this soppy talk. Go on and finish whatever it is you've got to do, and then come down and join the rest of us. I'm sure Mrs Hughes will be waiting with a great big mug of warm milk to fatten you up."

She leaves him there and goes up to the servants' corridor with no idea what awaits her on the other side of the door. It opens onto thick, velvet blackness that somehow seems oppressive, as if it's constricting the beam of her torch and dimming its light. The attic door is still closed up tight as a drum, but she senses the ghost somewhere behind it, too wrapped in his misery to notice yet that she is here.

She has already fished the key to her room out of her pocket so she won't have to fumble for it, and as she pushes it into the lock, a blue arc of electricity leaps from the metal to her bare skin, making her cry out and jerk away. The pain is not a sharp sting like the sparks she's felt before, but a deep, sick hurt that makes her arm ache all the way up to the shoulder. The fingers on that hand feel weak and useless, so she tucks her torch between her arm and her body and uses her other hand to tentatively touch the knob and then turn it.

There's a little pale moonlight coming through the window inside her room, just enough to let her see the shapes of furniture before she shines the beam in ahead of her. The glass bottle of sleeping powder is still sitting on her bedside table, and she scoops it up, then turns and leaves without bothering to lock the door or even pull it closed: she doesn't want to risk another shock, and it isn't as if anyone is likely to venture up here in the dark to poke about in her room. The door to the staircase is still ajar is well, letting her wedge the toe of her shoe into the gap, lever it open that way, and make her exit, still holding the torch awkwardly under one arm.

By the time she reaches the corridor where the family bedrooms are located, her dead hand has come back to life and is throbbing fiercely, and before she can go in to her Ladyship, she has to stop and cradle it for a moment, rubbing it with her other hand to soothe it until she thinks she can keep a neutral face. Knocking at the door, she goes in and finds Cora still seated at the dressing table, apparently lost in thought. Her hairbrush is in her lap, but Phyllis can't tell whether she's used it or not.

"Milady?"

"Hm?" Cora turns and looks at her. "Oh, Baxter. I forgot you were coming back. What time is it?"

Phyllis glances at the clock. "Not quite ten yet. I haven't been gone very long. I have the sleeping powder for you."

"That's good." Cora smiles, but there's a vague, confused expression on her face that Phyllis finds rather frightening, as if she's already asleep and speaking from the depths of a dream. "Will you get it ready for me?"

"Yes, of course. Perhaps you ought to lie down, and I'll bring it to you in bed?"

Cora obeys, and while she settles herself, Phyllis holds the bottle up to the candle to carefully measure the right amount of powder into a glass, then goes into the bathroom and trickles in water from the cold tap for mixing.

"Here you are, milady. It's bitter, I'm afraid."

"That's all right." Cora tips the glass up, swallows the contents and hands it back to Phyllis, who sets it on the bedside table. "Does it take long to work?"

"Not long at all," Phyllis says.

"I'll see you in the morning then, Baxter."

Her Ladyship's eyes are already beginning to flutter closed as Phyllis leaves the room. She shuts the door behind her and stands with her back against it, flexing the fingers on her still-aching hand and trying to gather herself together for the next step. With Cora safely disposed of and Thomas on guard downstairs, there is no reason to put it off any longer.

"I'm coming, Edwin," she says softly, and begins the long climb back to the attic.


	38. Chapter 38

In the upstairs corridor again, Phyllis finds that the painful aftermath of her experience with her bedroom door makes her terrified to touch the one that leads to the attic stairs. After a long moment of hesitating over it, she wraps a fold of her skirt around her hand for protection and uses that to grasp and turn the knob instead.

The door opens easily enough, but as soon as she steps inside, she can feel the electrical charge building up in the air inside the stairwell, prickling her skin all over like a thousand tiny needles. It gets stronger with every step she climbs, until the silver fillings in her back teeth are vibrating and the buzzing in her head is almost unbearable. The inner door at the top of the stairs is half open, and she pushes through it and emerges into a scene that is both horrifying and oddly lovely. Blue flashes and showers of sparks leap from everything metal—the latches and bindings of trunks, the plate stored in an open box, the rusted old sword leaning unsheathed against a wall—lighting the dark attic like the strange fire that sometimes appears on ships at sea. In the midst of it all is the ghost, rippling and seething with wild energy. She has never been more frightened of him, and at the same time she has never felt more tenderness and sorrow for the young man he used to be.

"Edwin," she says, and something deep within his substance flares with recognition at the sound of her voice. "You mustn't do this. Not here. It's very old and dry and full of things that can burn, and if one of these sparks lands in the wrong place, there will be a fire. I know you don't want that."

In a blink he is right in front of her, reaching toward her beseechingly, and she nods. "Yes, we can talk. That's why I've come, to talk to you and find out what's the matter. Come in, but take care. You were too rough last time."

The ghost needs no further invitation. He overlaps her and settles in, and at once her head is full of his despair.

 _I AM HERE I AM STILL HERE I CANNOT GET OUT_

 _I AM STILL HERE REGGIE WHY_

Through his glowing white aura, Phyllis can see the heavy wardrobe jittering on its four short legs, threatening to tip over despite its massive weight, and a few scattered blue flashes still going off in distant parts of the attic. She wonders briefly what will happen if a fire starts while she is immobilised this way, but decides not to think about that just now.

"Tell me what happened with Reggie," she says. "And be sure to go slowly so I can understand."

The ghost is still distressed, swelling and shrinking by turns, but he tries to obey her.

 _I remember it now. Reggie took me to a man. He was a man who made tools, and shoes for horses._

"A blacksmith," Phyllis says.

 _Yes. A blacksmith. He had a very hot fire, so hot it could burn bone. Reggie gave him the last coin to put me into the fire and to say nothing to anyone. He did not say what the coin's true worth was, but it was silver and the blacksmith was happy enough with that._

"But why didn't Reggie just sell the coin? It was worth so much, he could have paid the blacksmith and still had more than enough left over to settle his debts at home."

 _He thought the coin was tainted because it had caused my death. He said he might profit by it at first, but in the end he would be utterly ruined."_ The pain of the ghost's possession is getting out of control, but instead of protesting, Phyllis makes a conscious effort to relax and not to fight against it, determined not to interrupt him before he's finished. _After the blacksmith's work was done, Reggie asked him to put the ashes in the box. They were few because my flesh had already gone. Reggie brought the box home so I would be close to him, and put it under the floor for safekeeping._

"Why there?"

 _When we were children our favourite game was pretending to be explorers._ The ghost sounds wistful. _When it was cold or wet outside, we explored in the attic. We pulled up the board then to make a hiding place for the treasures we found._

"Oh," Phyllis says softly. It breaks her heart to think of the two fair-haired little boys running about in the attic, happy and laughing, playing pretend, and what became of them later.

 _Reggie was so angry when I wanted to go into the cave in the hillside because he said I was still trying to play the game, even though we were grown-up men_ , the ghost says. _Perhaps_ _I was, a little. It always meant more to me than it did to him. I was the one who wanted to go travelling before I had to settle down and take over the estate. To be a real explorer, just once. And I did find a treasure, though it was my undoing._

"But how was your hiding place in the floor never found? The board was loose when I touched it. Anyone might have noticed it."

 _Reggie had men come up and move the wardrobe to cover the spot. It took four of them to do it. He knew no one would bother to move it again after that. Nothing is taken away from this place, only added. All the lost and forgotten things are here._

"You're not lost or forgotten any longer," Phyllis assures him. "We've found you. We can take the box and your ashes to Lord Grantham, Reggie's great-grandson. He can have you buried properly in the graveyard with your family..."

 _No, I do not want that. I want to be at peace. I have been here for so long. I want to be set free._

"How can we set you free?"

 _Scatter my ashes in some wild place and let the wind carry them away. Do it now, tonight. I cannot bear any more of this existence._

"You've been frightening everyone in the house," Phyllis says. "Other people are having dreams now, not only me, and we're all in the dark."

 _I have been in such pain since I began to remember, and especially since I saw the box again._ _It has made me do things I should not. I thought I wanted to know my name, to remember who I was, but remembering hurts more than not knowing._

"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't know it would. I meant to help."

 _Not your fault. You only did what I asked you to do. You are as kind as you are brave. A true lady._

"I'm not a lady at all," Phyllis says, embarrassed. "I'm only a servant in this house. I thought you knew that."

 _I know,_ says the ghost, _and I stand by my words. And as I hope we shall not meet again on this side of life, my lady, I wish you well, and I give you whatever blessings I have to give. Now go and send me to my rest._

A few minutes later, Phyllis is descending the back stairs as fast as she can in the dark, holding onto the banister with one hand and her torch, now nearly out of batteries, with the other. In her pocket is Molesley's discarded knife, which she picked up when she replaced the board under the wardrobe. On the last step of the staircase she stops, smooths down her hair and dress, and wills herself to be quiet and sedate as she walks down the corridor and into the servants' hall, where Molesley himself is sitting in the chair nearest the fire, jabbing at the logs distractedly with the poker. He looks up at her with a face full of enquiry as she comes in.

"Have you finished upstairs?"

"Yes," Phyllis says. From the corner of her eye, she can see Thomas at the table a few seats down from Mrs Patmore, appearing to read the newspaper by candlelight, but clearly listening to their conversation for all he's worth. "I thought I might go outside for some air."

"I'll join you," Molesley says, getting up and shooting a look of dislike at Thomas, who has put down the paper and abandoned all pretence of not eavesdropping.

"We'll be just outside in the yard, Mr Barrow," Phyllis says to him. "No need to worry."

As soon as they're through the back door, Molesley turns to her, and she is startled and touched to see tears in his eyes.

"Thank God you're all right. I've been sick thinking about you up there alone with it. What happened? What do we need to do?"

"He wants us to scatter his ashes," Phyllis says. "Can you fetch the box from your room?"

"Of course, but is this the right time to do something like that? The ground's covered with snow."

"I know. He doesn't want to wait; he wants it done now, tonight. He's in such pain, Mr Molesley, you can't imagine. He remembers everything, but it's come at a terrible cost. But we can put an end to all of it—his unhappiness and the things that are happening in the house—if we can just fulfil this last request." She clutches his arm to drive home her point. "Please, please will you get the box?"

"Yes, but we'll have to wait to take it out. There are too many people around; we can't possibly get past them, or explain why we're going out at this hour. Suppose we do it early in the morning instead, before the sun comes up? We can say we decided to go for a walk before breakfast, or something like that, and it will still be night. More or less, anyway."

This suggestion makes Phyllis uneasy—she doesn't like to think of Edwin suffering a moment longer than necessary—but she has to admit that Molesley is right about the unlikeliness of Mr Carson allowing them out at midnight. "All right. Six o'clock, and we'll have to meet round the side, or Mrs Patmore will want to know why we're going out through the kitchen."

As they turn to go back inside, there is a click and a hum, and all the lights in the house come on again with no fanfare. The sudden illumination feels as bright as day for an instant, and Phyllis blinks and puts a hand up against it. Through the kitchen door, they hear the faint sounds of cheering as the rest of the staff celebrate their sudden return to the modern world.

"Do you think it's a good sign?" Molesley says.

Phyllis looks up at the attic windows, which are still blank and dark, and considers this question.

"Yes," she says. "I think so."

She tells Molesley good night in a whisper and goes back up to her room, where the door is still open just as she left it, but now spilling a reassuring stream of lamplight onto the floor of the corridor. As she steps over the threshold, she thinks that she wouldn't be surprised to find Edwin waiting there for her, wanting to know why she hasn't rushed off at once to carry out his request, but there is nothing inside except her own possessions: a stack of books and magazines, a few special ornaments arranged on a shelf, her workbox and sewing basket. The bottle of sleeping powder is missing, and at first she has a creeping, surreal feeling it was never there at all—that the last several weeks have all been one long dream—but then she remembers that she left it in Lady Grantham's room. Well, she can collect it in the morning, after she and Molesley have done their errand.

When the hour arrives, he's waiting for her at the appointed place, wrapped up as warmly as she is in coat and hat and scarf, and they set off together, skirting the village path and walking instead in the direction of the wood beyond it. Phyllis has a raffia bag slung over her shoulder, as if she has been out shopping, but instead of carrots and potatoes and sugar, the box of ashes rests quietly at its bottom.

"He said a wild place," Phyllis says. Her voice sounds startlingly loud in the pre-dawn hush, and she glances round to see if anyone can have heard, but they're all alone, just two small figures in a white field of snow against the dark.

"I think the wood's as close as we're going to get," Molesley says. "There's not much wilderness round here these days."

They reach the fringes of the wood in good time and walk through it as the sky begins to lighten, snow and fallen branches crunching under their feet, picking their way cautiously round logs and stones. It's still and silent and very cold, and Phyllis begins to lose the feeling in her fingers, even with the thick, hand-knit mittens she's layered over her gloves. At last they come to a little clearing, barely more than a break in the trees beside the frozen stream, and Molesley says, "What about here?"

Phyllis inspects the space and frowns. "I'm not sure. It isn't much, is it?"

"It's wild enough, though," says Molesley. "And it'll be nice in the summer, here beside the water with the trees for shade. There are worse places to end up."

"That's true." She shivers. "All right, here will do. Can you remember where it is, in case we want to come back later?"

Molesley nods, and she strips the mitten and glove from one hand and reaches into her bag to lift out the box. There's enough light now for her to see the pattern on top, the green squares and the blackened silver letter C, and she stops and traces it gently with a cold, stiff finger.

"We never found out what this stands for," she says.

"Does it matter?"

"I suppose not." Phyllis pushes the lid of the box open and looks down at the small collection of ash and bone fragments inside, then up at Molesley again. "Do you mind if I do this part on my own? I think he'd want it that way."

"Not at all," Molesley says, and she dips into the box and scoops the contents into her palm. They feel gritty and rough and curiously warm, and she squeezes her hand closed for a moment, thinking of all the times she has touched Edwin in spirit form. That burning, crackling energy seems far removed from what is in her hand, but she knows, somehow, they are connected.

 _This light is inside you too_ , she thinks, and opens her fingers to let the ashes fall. As she does, a thin, chilly breeze springs up and whirls them into the air, scattering them far and wide before they touch the snow, and she draws a sharp breath of surprise.

"Did you see that?"

"I did." There's an awed expression on Molesley's face that makes him look twenty years younger than he is, and Phyllis has a sudden, almost uncontrollable impulse to reach up and kiss him. She resists it and turns the box upside down instead, shaking it to be sure every last bit of ash is released.

"It's over now, Edwin," she says aloud. "You're free."

"Do you think he is?"

"I think so." Phyllis closes the box and hugs it to her chest. It weighs less than it did when she and Edwin clung to it in their shared dream, but its shape and feel are still as familiar to her as her own face. "Reggie ought to have done this from the start."

"I wonder why he didn't," Molesley says.

"It was a sort of selfishness, I think," Phyllis says. "He truly mourned Edwin's death, but he couldn't let him go. He brought him home to soothe his own conscience, not because it was what was best for his brother. He wasn't an evil man, though, only a weak, sad, greedy one. It's a miracle he was able to give the last coin away."

"I haven't heard that part of the story yet," Molesley says. "Why don't you tell me on the way back? If we hurry, there might still be some breakfast left. It'll be a long morning without even a slice of toast."

"Fair enough," Phyllis says, and slips the box back into her bag. They've already talked over what to do with it, and have decided to wrap it up and tuck it into one of the trunks in the attic, where it will have a chance of being found one day by someone who isn't either of them. Perhaps, she thinks, Miss Sybbie and Master George will want to play at being explorers when they're a bit older.

"Hang on a minute first, though—"

Molesley takes out his pocketknife, which Phyllis returned to him some hours ago, and uses it to dig a cross into the trunk of the tree nearest the clearing's entrance. "There. Just to make certain we'll know the place again."

Dawn is coming on fast now, and the world they walk through is grey and white, with long streaks of pink and gold in the sky to the east. Just as they come within sight of the great house, the edge of the sun breaches the horizon, and they stop to watch light spill over the manicured lawns. It strikes the attic windows, and Phyllis imagines it filling up the vast space, now sleepy and dusty and ordinary without its tortured spirit.

She gropes for Molesley's hand at her side, finds it, and squeezes it warmly.

"Welcome home, Mr Molesley," she says.

* * *

 _Not the end! There's one more chapter to go. Keep hanging in there..._


	39. Chapter 39

"We're a bit early," Phyllis says, glancing at the big blue station clock on its decorative metal arm. "The train doesn't go for nearly an hour. Shall we wait inside or outside?"

"Outside, I think," Molesley says. "The weather's too fine to waste."

"It is, isn't it?" Phyllis looks up at the arched roof with its pierced, curving iron girders, soaring above them like a cathedral that stretches away into the distance. Sun floods through the leaded glass panes and fills the echoing space with light. She hasn't been in York station since before Christmas, and then it was a dull, grey, snowy day, nothing like this surprisingly summery one. Even the lightweight coat she's wearing feels too warm, and she's looking forward to getting back to the house, where she can take it off. She and Molesley have spent the morning in the city, doing errands for Lady Grantham and Mr Carson, respectively, and it's been lovely, but she's ready to go home now.

Molesley, who is still in a holiday mood, offers her his arm, and she shifts her handbag over so she can take it as they walk. They're halfway through the concourse, and she's thinking that perhaps they'll have enough time to visit the tearoom next to the station, when something catches her eye that nearly freezes the blood in her veins. She stops in her tracks, pulling Molesley off balance, and he stops too and leans down.

"What happened? Did your heel break or...?"

Phyllis shakes her head mutely. People are having to go around them on both sides, and at least one large, stuffy old gentleman doesn't seem very pleased about it, but she can't make her feet move. All she can do is stand where she is, staring at a middle-aged man in a clean but well-worn brown tweed suit, who is sitting on the bench nearest them and reading a folded newspaper. His coat is partially unbuttoned in deference to the warm day, and just inside she can see a silver watch chain, with something shiny that isn't a watch hanging from it. She doesn't dare point, but Molesley follows the direction of her gaze and sees it too.

"Oh God," he says. "Is it what I think it is?"

"Yes," Phyllis says, scarcely above a whisper.

"You're sure?"

She nods, and Molesley lets out a long, slow breath.

"Well, we've got to go and ask him about it, haven't we?"

"We can't. We don't know him; he'll think we're mad people, or that we want to rob him, or—"

"We can't _not_ ," Molesley says. "Come on. I'll do it if you don't want to."

Phyllis makes an effort and gets herself unstuck, and they cross the short distance to the bench. The man glances up from his newspaper as they approach, and Molesley puts on his mildest, most harmless expression and says, "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon." He nods briefly and seems about to return to reading, but Molesley catches him before he can.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be impolite, but I noticed that interesting piece on your watch chain, there, and I just wondered if I might ask where it came from. I wouldn't mind having something like it myself."

"Oh, that!" The man grins, relaxing. He has curly dark hair and a friendly, open face, and Phyllis is relieved that he doesn't seem offended by the question. "You're not the first person to ask me about it, I can tell you. I suppose it's a what-do-you-call-it, an heirloom. Only one of its kind I've ever seen, so you're not likely to find one in a shop."

"It does look unique," Molesley says. "What sort of heirloom is it?"

"It was my great-granddad's," the man says. "He was paid with it to do a special job, so the story goes, and he never felt right spending it, so he drilled a hole in it and hung it on his watch chain. Passed it down to my granddad, who passed it down to my dad, and then it came to me when Dad died a while back."

"What job did your great-granddad do?" Phyllis asks, recovering her voice. The coin has been polished to a bright gleam since she last saw it, clutched in Reginald Crawley's hand on a distant lake shore in a dream, but its lopsided shape is unchanged. She can see the two daggers and the words EID MAR from where she stands, exactly as they were in the pencil sketch she burnt in the kitchen fire months ago.

"No idea, but he was a blacksmith, so I imagine it had something to do with that." He shrugs. "I never knew him, of course, and even my granddad barely remembered him, but it makes a good family legend."

"Have you ever thought of selling it?" Molesley asks. "It looks as if it might be worth something, even with the hole through it."

"Oh, I doubt that. Dad always said it was a Roman coin, and there are loads of those floating around, even if they're not exactly like this one. Anyway, I'd rather pass it on to my own son when he's old enough. He's only six now." He rubs the coin between his fingers, then pulls his watch out of his waistcoat pocket, checks the time, and stands up, leaving the newspaper behind on the bench. "Sorry, I've got to go. I'm meeting someone off a train in a few minutes. Nice chatting to you."

"He's walking around with a hundred thousand pounds dangling from his watch chain," Molesley says, watching the man stroll toward the platforms. "I wish we could have told him."

"Perhaps it's better he doesn't know," Phyllis says. "Think what the coins did to Reggie and Edwin. It brought out the worst in Reggie, knowing they were worth all that money, and Edwin ended up losing his life. As long as the blacksmith's great-grandson thinks the coin's just decoration, he'll be all right, and if he's meant to find out what it really is, he will somehow."

"That's very philosophical of you, Miss Baxter."

"Is it?" Phyllis looks up at him sidelong from under the brim of her hat. "Just common sense, I think."

"There's a lot to be said for common sense," Molesley says. "Are you all right? You're awfully pale."

"I'm fine." She's still holding onto his arm, and now she gives it a little squeeze. "It was a bit of a shock, that's all. Well, more than a bit, but I'll get over it. It's just—I've tried not to think too much about everything that happened, these last few months, and now it's right there again."

Molesley looks troubled. "As long as you're already thinking about it, would you mind if I show you something when we get back to Downton? I've been meaning to do it for a few weeks now, and the time never seemed quite right, but now..."

"What is it?" Phyllis asks.

"Well, that's the thing," he says. "It's a surprise. But it isn't a bad sort of surprise, I promise you that. Do you trust me enough to wait and see what it is?"

"Of course I do."

"All right then." He smiles down at her, the worried expression melting away. "I'll take you to see it on the way home. I think you'll like it. At least I hope you will."

It's still only mid-afternoon when they get out of the train at Downton station, and as they set off toward the house, Phyllis gives in and takes off her coat, draping it over one arm. Molesley has seen her in her nightclothes and her dressing gown and crawling filthy and dishevelled across an attic floor; he won't mind if she's not properly dressed for a walk along the lane.

"This way," he says as they reach the end of the path, and she follows him toward the wood, wondering what on earth his surprise can be. She has already deduced that it must have something to do with Edwin's ghost, but the rest is a mystery, and it's only because she trusts him as much as she does that she's willing to go along.

He leads the way through the trees, now decked out in deep shades of summer green, and along the stream, which is fuller and faster-flowing than usual after a heavy rain the day before, and at last they come out in the clearing where she hasn't stood since that frozen early morning in December. She almost doesn't recognise it at first—the memories of snow and bare black branches and grey light are too strong—but then she sees the cross carved into the trunk of one of the trees and knows it's the right place. Her gaze drifts down from there, and suddenly she notices the ground at her feet and realises what Molesley wants to show her.

"Oh!" She puts a hand over her mouth in amazement and delight. "Oh—they're everywhere."

"I know," Molesley says modestly. "I put them there."

"You did?"

"I came back and planted them a month or two ago. Well, I didn't exactly plant them. I asked my dad what to do, and he gave me some wildflower seeds and said just to scatter them and they'd take root and grow all on their own, and so they have."

"I've never seen so many all in one place." Phyllis turns from side to side, drinking in the sight of the glorious carpet of flowers spread out before her: blue and violet, pink and white, yellow and orange. Bees are making their rounds in the dappled sunlight, buzzing contentedly, half drunk on nectar and the sweet heady scent that fills the clearing. She thinks she knows how they must feel.

"Dad says they'll seed themselves again every spring and summer, now," Molesley says, "so your Edwin will always have flowers growing wild. I thought it seemed right."

"Oh, Mr Molesley, I hardly know what to say."

"Well, I hope you'll say you like it." He hesitates a little, as if not sure of the answer. "You do like it, don't you?"

"I love it," Phyllis says. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and to think you did it for him and for me—"

"Mostly for you," Molesley admits. "But for him as well. I thought of what you said, about how he had been alone and in pain for so long that he'd forgot how to be human. He remembered at the end, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did," Phyllis says. She's been fighting back tears, but now she loses the battle and they spill over, horrifying Molesley, who looks as if he's accidentally stabbed her through the heart.

"Oh my Lord, I didn't mean to make you cry. Here." He pushes his handkerchief into her gloved hand. "Don't, please, or I'll feel as if I've done something wrong after all."

"You haven't, not a bit. It's the happy sort of crying." Phyllis applies the handkerchief to her cheeks, wishing she hadn't used that touch of face powder this morning, and then hands it back and looks up at him. They have stood here just like this before, in a bleak wintry landscape, and she'd wanted to kiss him then, but thought better of it. Now everything is so different—the warm air, the green trees, the flowers—that she feels different too. Before the feeling and the moment can slip away, she bends down, plucks a single pink blossom and threads the stem one-handed through his buttonhole, and then while she's already close, leans in and presses that longed-for kiss softly to his mouth.

She means to keep it brief, and at first he seems so rigid with surprise that she thinks she had better make it even quicker than she intended, but before she can draw away, she feels one of his hands curve clumsily round the back of her neck and the other one come to rest between her shoulder blades, keeping her in place. Her arms are still full of her coat and handbag and she can't embrace him in return, but she can go on kissing him, so she leans up against his chest, coat and bag both getting squashed between them, and does that for all she's worth. Somehow in the midst of it all, she has time to wonder if Edwin's spirit is still lingering around and watching, but the idea doesn't worry her. She doesn't think Edwin would mind.

At last Molesley lets go of her, and she takes half a step back, searching his face for some sort of sign. He looks pleased, but also terribly confused, and now she does begin to worry that she miscalculated, that she's frightened him, that he thinks her too forward. But then after all they've been through together, how can he?

"I hope you'll say you like it," she says, and he smiles a little at hearing his own words quoted back to him.

"I love it," he says, "but..."

"But?"

"But I don't know what it means."

Phyllis can't help laughing at that, half in relief and half because it's such a very Joseph Molesley thing to say.

"We can talk about what it means later," she says. "For now, let's go home."

This time, he's the one who reaches for her hand. She takes it, and they leave the clearing together.


End file.
